Need help with texture problem.

[Dart98Rock]

I am currently working on my hair color mod, I am turning the hair into helmets so they are compatible with all races. When I view the hair with the textures showing in NifSkope everything looks fine, just the way I painted them in Photoshop. When I look at it in game the the texture is there but the hair color is darker and transparent. I attached a picture of what it looks like in game and in NifSkope. I read multiple guides, tutorials, and forums but none help me for this problem. Any help would be appreciated a lot, I have people waiting for this update.

 

 

 

[Vandrath]

In order to solve the transparency issue try putting a solid color fill layer behind the texture because you may have inadvertently made the file transparent (a checkered background means the image has transparency). If color fill isnt the problem you might want to check and see how your NIF is setup.

The darker colored hair is Skyrims fault. Skyrim makes textures darker or lighter then they actually are in the texture file. (dont know why, its just how the game engine is). Even though your texture looks just fine in Nifskope or Photoshop it doesn't mean that Skyrim will take it as it is. In my work with textures I have had to darken the image to make it look right because Skyrim makes my landscape textures too bright. You may want to turn up the brightness and contrast of the texture until it looks right when viewed in the game.

[Dart98Rock]

Thanks Vandrath, I was thinking that Skyrim was making the colors darker but wasn't sure. I tested to see if my textures where messed up in Photoshop but everything looks right. I also tried this with the normal textures that Apachii uses for the hair and their still transparent so that just leaves I set up something wrong in the Creation Kit or the Nif file not set up right. I am going to check everything in NifSkope again, and try to set the hair helmet differently in the Creation Kit. Thanks for the help man.

[throttlekitty]

Uncheck the hair shader options in the LightingShaderProperty, the shader is expecting an input color and is probably assuming black since it's no longer used as hair.

 

In NifSkope, check Vertex Colors under the TriShapeData, perhaps switch it to no as a secondary fix for the transparency issue.

[Dart98Rock]

Thanks Throttlekitty for you response, it helped me understand NifSkope and kind of how things work in it, but unfortunitly I wasn't able to fix it. I searched threw everything in the file and couldn't find anything to do with hair, and the vertex colors didn't change anything. Another thing could it be the mesh not showing up in game, just the textures, not sure if that's possible but that would explain both my problems. With out the mesh the texture would be transparent and the background/game engine could change the colors.

[throttlekitty]

Sorry, I just looked at the shader properties, I wasn't very clear. In particular, there's a few checkboxes in the Shader Flag fields that should be unchecked:

Hair_Soft_Lighting in Shader Flags 1

and Vertex Colors (if you turned them off), and Assume Shadowmask in Shader Flags 2.

 

Then, up at the top, Skyrim Shader Type should be changed from Hair Tint to Default.

 

 

So, on to your transparency problem... what do you mean the texture shows but not the model? Looks like it's showing in your first screenshot just fine. Aside from the eyeball showing through, and maybe some sorting errors where some hair strips are rendered in front instead of behind. that's a problem with the model, and isn't very fun to fix. Did this hairstyle render properly as a hairstyle before your edits?

[Dart98Rock]

Ya the hair works great as normal hair its the first hairstyle in ApachiiSkyHair. Thanks for a quick response. About the mesh not showing up, I was just wandering if the textures could load but not the mesh, because that could explain the transparency, though if a mesh doesn't load I normally get that giant " ! " sign or invisable armor. O I just found out that I needed a Nif.xml, file to look at the shader flags. That's what kept messing me up, but now when I look at em it erases the Value and puts it at 0. Also the list is blank, when I check a box nothing happens. Edited November 28, 2012 by Dart98Rock

[throttlekitty]

Latest version of NifSkope is here: http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/NifSkope

[Dart98Rock]

Thank you, you are awesome! First after installing the newer version of NifSkope, everything works, better then before. I felt stupid cause I forgot I changed the file path in the Creation Kit for the hair mesh and textures so I kept working on the wrong .nif file. After I applied everything you said the hair color is perfect, just like it looks in NifSkope. The hair is still transparent even after setting my characters hair to shaved. New screenshot of what it looks like now. Once I get the transparency fixed and get the update posted I will definitely give you credit in my mod description for making this update possible.

 

 

[steve40]

I haven't worked with hair, but transparency in Skyrim models is often performed by alpha testing and/or blending using a NiAlphaProperty block. You would usually find this block under a NiTriShape in the Block List window of Nifskope. There is a flag in the Block Details where you can modify the type of blending effect (right-click the flag icon, select "Flags" and a window will pop up). The "Threshold" parameter in the Block Details window controls the strength of the effect (0-255). You probably want to leave the "testing" settings alone and play with the blending options. Edited November 28, 2012 by steve40