Making metal look like metal. A quick guide from my experience.

[cain9580]

I posted a comment to another thread about how I was able to get metal textures to look as similar as PBR metals do in texture painting software and newer graphics rendering engines. I figured I would post it here for the people who may not visit the Skyrim Mods Reddit where I posted a write up on my personal method.

 

When I first started making texture mods this was very frustrating to me especially when trying to make things like Gold, Brass, and other metals with a tinted reflection quality.

 

So, I just posted this on the Nexus forums for a fellow mod maker and I thought I would share it here. When I first started making texture mods this was very frustrating to me especially when trying to make things like Gold, Brass, and other metals with a tinted reflection quality.

 

This is the culmination of a bit of trial and error to come up with a method for making metal textures. It has worked for me with decent results and was an attempt to take some of the guess work out when trying to recreate life like objects. The process relies on cubemaps to provide the specular color of the metal. The diffuse map can stay black or you can split the difference between the the diffuse and the cubemap until you get a metal looking object.

 

From there you take the specular quantity and that will be the base for your environment mask map. From there you can add any ambient occlusion, roughness, and extra details to it. The normal map should be as smooth as you can get it so the texture is a clean reflection. Specular highlights go in the Alpha channel of the Normal map but use them sparingly unless the object is separate from any non metals in the model.

 

It takes some playing around with the textures and you will need the correct values from a PBR website to get the qualities of the particular metal you desire. For fine tuning use the specular color, glossiness, and specular level inside the Nif file.

 

If you split the difference between the diffuse and the cubemap make sure to go light on the diffuse or you will get a very bright object. Some ambient occlusion goes a long way on the diffuse and for the process you will need slightly large than average cubemap files or the reflections will be pixelated.

 

That is my method and it has worked very well for me in some of the later textures I have done. If you donât get the look you are going for initially just keep trying. With a dated engine like Skyrims expect more fails at the start of trying to get it exactly right but when you do the end product can look amazing.

 

If anyone gives it a try let me know how it comes out and if you are having trouble download my Vidrinath sword from Nexus and feel free to scrutinize my textures.

 

Enjoy!

Edited March 13, 2019 by cain9580