[LE] Beginner tries to fix a texture

[CrysKilljoy]

Hey guys,

I was just trying to port this mod to Skyrim VR, and it seems to work pretty well, except, that the texture is more shiny black rust, then the expected red metal, and I also want to change the specular map to something more smooth.

I looked into some tutorials for textures but couldn't find anything, that would help me.

[cumbrianlad]

I don't know anything about VR, but that's a Skyrim mod, not Skyrim Special edition. It'll be using Skyrim textures and the old form format. I think you have to import SSE mods into VR. That could be an issue. It's all I can think of. VR is not recognizing the textures, so it's not rendering some of them.

[CrysKilljoy]

Sorry for the delay to answer. holidays'n stuff.

So I already looked into ways of porting from oldrim to sse, that's how I got the mod to work in the first place. I just couldn'T find anything to fix the texture, though. Any advice for this?

[cumbrianlad]

Are you certain that the texture files are all there? Have you opened the model in Nifskope and checked that the relevant 'BSS shader Texture sets' are pointing to the right file?

 

I don't have that mod so I can't look at the nif myself to see if that is a simple texture or if there are settings in the 'BS lighting shader property' that are being adjusted to get it.

 

If I've time I could download the mod and take a look at the nif.

 

Edit: the images on the mod page do look as if there'e a glow added or that it may have emissivity set to red in the lighting shader property.

[CrysKilljoy]

Ok, I'll take a look at it, once I have the time for it. Thank you so far

[maxarturo]

"except, that the texture is more shiny black rust, then the expected red metal"

 

The shines of the object is defined by the "Alpha Channel" of the "Normal Map", according to what's the information of the Alpha Channel that's how it would look in game, and how the "Normal Map's Detail" will actually look.

Black = NO Shiness

Mid tones = Half Shiness

White = Full Shiness

The use of the "Alpha Channel" is absolutely necessary to have a correct result when it comes to have a realistic detailed Height/Depth mapping, and in the case of weapons or any flat surfaces, the realistic display of the small in resolution and in scale details on the surface, for example: the engravings or battle cracks.

The fact that your version is black instead of red might be because you are saving it in the wrong format, there are other reasons too that can cause the black texture issue, but the format is the first in line if you haven't edited the original Nif.

[cumbrianlad]

i still haven't downloaded the mod to take a look at the nif. I really must. In all honesty, if i download it, I can at least look at the normal, diffuse, multilayer and any cubemap textures that are added to it, make it suitable for SSe and send it back. I like tinkering with textures, anyway, so it'll be fun.

 

Maxarturo, I just tinker around with the normal maps until I get what I want. Your comment may speed this process up!

 

I can also play around with the 'emissive' spectrum and anything else.

 

OP... we're not giving up on you, just yet!

 

Downloading the mod! Right now! No, I was lying there. Obviously I wasn't downloading the mod because I was too busy typing... Doh! I'll try to stop typing and get to downloading... any minute now... Doh! I've done it again... Bye!

[cumbrianlad]

Needs someone better than me with Nifskope, I'm afraid. I'm seeing the same black textures that you see.

It's totally strange to me, too. It has no normal texture at all, just the same diffuse texture applied twice.

I even tried making a normal map for it and swapping the second texture to it... no result.

 

It is using emisivity in the nif, too, but none of that seems to be working.

[cumbrianlad]

Okay, I got it to work in Oldrim properly. I took the nifs and textures out of the BSA and added them as loose files, renaming them to take out the spaces in the nif names. Then I pointed the nif textures to the new locations. Re-assigning the nifs to the weapons and 1st person objects in CK32, gave me warnings about missing environment maps and cubemaps, however ignoring these errors resulted in the proper sword appearance.

 

I copied the nifs and textures into the SSE data folder, assigned the textures, made a new esp and added the swords and first person versions. This resulted in a mirror-like pair of swords but no red emissive effect.

 

Running the sanitize and optimize spells on the nifs destroyed them completely, so that they would not show up in the render window in the CK any more.

 

This information may be useful to someone with more experience with nifs and textures.

 

Neither weapon nif showed up correctly in Nifskope, one being the rusty colour, the other with two pairs of diffuse textures looked almost black. These both looked fine in 32 bit CK, but the mirror look in CK64.

[cumbrianlad]

Success!

 

Lovely red swords in SSE, just like the images on the mod page.

 

After adding the loose files and assigning textures, I just ran it through SSE Nif Optimizer. It sorted out the problems with the nifs. the swords can be picked up and wielded without any issues.