SSE Texture details not showing in-game.

[cumbrianlad]

Hi.

 

I've got circlet textures that look fine in Nifskope, and the CK previews. They also look good in the inventory in-game. The only issue is that in 3rd person, the fine detail doesn't show up. I've tested in all sorts of lighting conditions.

 

It's the dragon writing that can't be seen... pretty important. I've got the normal maps and environment maps set up to highlight the writing. Is this just a simple matter that the game can't render detail that fine? I had wondered about adding a glow texture to the nif (I've even made one) but It'd be a complete waste of time altering all the nifs if the glow was also too fine to show up in-game*edit2, just like the writing! If I'm testing by editing diffuse, normal, environment and glow textures, this could take an eternity... and with no benefit if I'm peeing against the wind because the game can't render any of it! (Also, altering all the nifs to have a glow texture will take a lot of work, since I need new lighting shader properties for each nif)

 

I realise that the writing is pretty small, but I'd have thought I could see it somewhat!

 

Any comments?

 

P.S. They still look pretty cool!

 

Edit: I may have answered my own question... testing again and using 'tfc' (Toggle Free Camera) to move towards the wearer, the writing resolved itself when about twice as close to the wearer. At the normal distance that 3rd person allows, the writing was lost as a slightly less dark blur. I'm guessing that the glow would do the same? All textures have mip maps, I know it goes against the grain, but should I exclude mip maps, say from the environment map? That way, the game would always use the higher resolution texture and perhaps not blur the writing out?

 

If everyone did this on all textures, that would definitely cause stress on the game engine... but for one little texture?... or am I being too 'precious'?

 

*Edit 2: maybe a glow map with no mip maps? That way the glow will still show over the other textures?

[maxarturo]

"but should I exclude mip maps"

"maybe a glow map with no mip maps?"

Mip maps is what the game engine > GPU retrieves/use to run all the 'Trilinear' + "Anisotropic' + any other similar function from other GPUs (i can't remember the names of them all, but they all do the same things).

Mip maps in a way are the "Texture's LOD".

In the case of environmental/cube, normal, parallax, environment reflection mask maps...

* I don't know about diffuse, emissive - soft - rim - multiLayer parallax maps, i have never experimented with those but common logic dictates that it also applies for those.

...if the texture does not have mip maps the texture automatically "WILL NOT BE USED" by the game engine.

The fact that you can not see, exempt from very close distance, those details is cause by the following reasons.

1) Missing mip maps, so after a certain distance it will just not render !.

2) The "Greyscale Environment/Reflection Mask" does not have those details excluded/added in it.

3) The "Normal's Alpha Chanel" does not have those details excluded/added in it.

4) The "Normal map" does not have those details in it, the detail's height/depth.

5) If the details are too small it will render, but at a certain distance if an area needs HALF a pixel to render then the game engine won't use a FULL pixel for it.

I don't know if this is clear enough (#5), this actually needs more detail and visual representation to be able to explain it correctly, but is directly related/connected to resolution.

Those are in general the reasons, if i get to remember more i'll come back to this later..., i just woke up...

Edited April 21, 2020 by maxarturo

[cumbrianlad]

Thanks for the detailed reply, Maxarturo.

 

I've double checked all the textures. I saved with mip maps DXT5 except for the environment map which was DXT1 with mip maps. The individual parts of each letter taper from around 8 pixels down to 1 at the very tip. Because the original texture was relatively small at 1024 x 512, I left the environment map at the same size to avoid losing detail. The lettering is clearly there on all three textures. In fact I deliberately emphasised the lettering on both the environment map and the .bmp texture used for the normal map.

 

Your comment about textures automatically not being used if mipmaps are absent is useful, since it proves I didn't make a mistake and exclude them from any of the textures. I have the original multilayer paint.net images, so if I can't sort it any other way I could always re-do all 3 textures pretty quickly.

 

The normal map was produced using Normal Map Plus, saving as DXT1 in paint.net and then opening the texture in DXTBmp and importing the alpha channel from a .bmp image and saved DXT5 including mipmaps. The lettering on the .bmp image was also emphasised.

 

Edit: the textures were correct but what I've discovered so far is that the biggest issue was not, as I first thought that the textures weren't being rendered, it was that the environment map had the bulk of the circlet too reflective, so that at a distance, the reflections from the metal around the letters were obscuring the delicate text. By decreasing the lightness of the bulk of the circlet in the EM and so increasing the contrast between the letters and the rest of the circlet, the dragon letters became more noticeable at normal 3rd person viewing distance. I tinkered around with the contrast of the gradients within the letters, too and that had a beneficial effect.

 

I can only take this so far, though as I don't want the circlet too dull. i've still got some scope left to increase the brightness of the letters in the environment map. I think now that I can get a balance that I'll be happy with.

 

I could also simply darken a small area around each letter in the environment map while leaving the majority of the metal as it is. That will further enhance the contrast between the band and letters while keeping a decent amount of reflectivity on most of the metal.

 

Another influence appears to be that I've given the circlet a small amount of emissivity. It's nice but I think that is also 'blurring' the outline of the letters... something else to play with.

 

I bet no player ever realises just how many hours have gone into this one little band of metal and gems! A glow layer may be cool, but I'll skip it if I get a good model without one.

[cumbrianlad]

Thanks, Maxarturo!

 

The level of detail you gave enabled me to eliminate a lot of possible sources of the fault and hone in on the one that was causing the issue.

 

The environment map was the issue, coupled with the fact that the dragon writing is a very fine detail. I am now very close to a result that I'll be happy with.

 

On the subject of environment maps, i have struggled to get decent results... as has been amply demonstrated here! I have yet to get into making new models, so a lot of my stuff is re-textures and what I can tweak in Nifskope. Maybe it's just that I lack the necessary apps for paint.net. What I have is fine for diffuse textures and normal maps, but I struggle to produce the needed contrast/brightness levels that are ideal for environment maps. What tools do you use for environment maps?

[maxarturo]

Sorry for the late response, but i've been struggling the last 3 days with trying to make something work that the game/CK just doesn't want to do it !!, and i'm 2 steps before my head explodes !!!!.....

............................................................................................................................................

"it was that the environment map had the bulk of the circlet too reflective, so that at a distance, the reflections from the metal around the letters were obscuring the delicate text"

This can easily be fixed, you just need to:

1) In the normal's Alpha Channel place your "Letters" in a completely "BLACK" color so no Specularity will be generated from that part.

2) In the Greyscale Environment/Reflection Mask place your "Letters" in a completely "BLACK" color so no light Reflection will be generated from that part.

* In both of the above the same principle applies:

- Normal > White = Full Specularity

Black = No Specularity

- Greyscale > White = will reflect all light

Black = will reflect no light

* It will be wise that you thicken a little both in the normal and grayscale the letters, something like an invisible OUTLINE that will work as an excluded area, so that it will help the viewer to easily see those letters.

"Another influence appears to be that I've given the circlet a small amount of emissivity. It's nice but I think that is also 'blurring' the outline of the letters... something else to play with."

As you experiment you will see that 'Emissive' in this circumstances (with small details) just doesn't help instead it just makes things worst, it can only help if the Emissive has an "Emissive map that only affect the LETTERS", but if you do so you can not use Environment/Cube Map.

"but I struggle to produce the needed contrast/brightness levels that are ideal for environment maps."

Those are controlled by the normal's Alpha Channel and by Grayscale Environment/Reflection Mask, you can also tweak in NifSkope the BSLightingShaderProperty, its glossines, specular strenght... etc, but you will never achieve a nice realistic result if you don't have a well made Normal & Grayscale map.

"What tools do you use for environment maps?"

I only use Photoshop & Adobe programs for everything that involves textures, and i never use automatic generation tools, i do everything free handed from scratch.

So sorry but i can't help you here, especially from a distance and in a post.

I would strongly recommend that you copy and study this (the spoiler):

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/8584998-small-question-regarding-texturing/

it has some valuable info like what kind of DXT format must be used and for which circumstance.

90% of the times i have to at least re-save the textures that are use from some "Modders Resources", because they use wrong DXT format and this causes unnecessary stress on the PC, for example:

- A 'diffuse' texture that is save as DXT5 and neither the mesh or the texture uses " Transparency Information " will have in it an "Empty" white Alpha channel that will increase by 2X the size of the texture, from 2.5 mb to 5 mb.

* All 'diffuse' textures if they don't have " Transparency Information " must be save as "DXT1 no Alpha".

Edited April 18, 2020 by maxarturo

[cumbrianlad]

Thanks a lot for that.