DrakeTheDragon Posted February 28, 2021 Share Posted February 28, 2021 Well, from what I know about normal maps, they are these 3 color channels (red, green, blue) for a reason, each channel giving shape in a different one of the 3 directions.I actually have no idea what could happen when making one of these channels black or grey, well, other than removing this channel's impact from the 3D shape. What I do know though is, the specular map from other games in Oblivion is found in the alpha channel of the normal map. That's why it has to be so bloody damn dark, if you don't want it to shine like crazy.Additionally it seems to work as some kind of multiplicator/factor for all the other surface effects as well, like the "highlight" texture apply type making things plasticly shine or the "EnvMap2" hardcoded material name making surfaces reflect a pre-rendered environment map for a metal or glass effect. All these are either emphasized or diminished by the amount of white in the normal map's alpha channel (i.e. specular map). The glossiness, of course, is just that. The higher it is, the more glossy (wet look) the surface will get. Turning down the specular part of the material does get rid of the specularity effects, too. But changing these settings for a hardcoded, game-controlled material like "skin" is not guaranteed to have an effect. Not all but most of these are overridden by the game according to your slider choices in CharGen. And some special skin shader for other rendering effects is also laid over the surface of such objects. But even if the material setting you change will survive into the actual game, if you did it to a body part mesh, you'll have to re-do it to every body part mesh inside every clothing or armor item's NIF you're ever going to wear.The body mesh NIFs are only used by the game while the actor is naked/not wearing any other thing. Every item you equip will replace the body inside/underneath. Additionally, the game uses 1 body for all races. So what you change in its materials will effect them all.With Blockhead you can isolate the last problem by making "only 1 race" use this particular custom body mesh. But when it comes to clothing and armor items, the previous requirement still stands. I'm far from an expert in texturing, much less materials, though. So that's just what I know. And ever since Argonian Beautification and having had to convert one set of skin textures to all bodies in existence in the past I'm seriously inclined to staying the hell away from all other bodies but Robert's Male/Female, due to the hell I had to go through making scaled and structured textures not look horribly warped and stretched everywhere on all of the others. Never again, I tell you. :pinch: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mishkax Posted February 28, 2021 Author Share Posted February 28, 2021 ah.well luckily i can say this isnt the first time in gaming history ive encountered this thing that ive nicknamed "the infinite cat" problem.so i prepared in advance by giving all the involved materials copys and unique file names Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mishkax Posted February 28, 2021 Author Share Posted February 28, 2021 hmmmm.just a slight question. im working on a brand new face for my custom race character,will the flesh extract used being as pale as a vampire in comparison to the original imperial lady's mild tan be a problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mishkax Posted February 28, 2021 Author Share Posted February 28, 2021 well,it worked alot better than i thought it would,any idea why the right eyebrow is messed up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mishkax Posted February 28, 2021 Author Share Posted February 28, 2021 as for the scars on the face not showing up?i thought it would go ok but it seems i need to take drastic measures i swear im doing everything i can to make her look more like a realistic frankenstein lady,but she ends up lookings like a beauty queen everytime (sidenote,can someonell tell me why pasting my face onto my oblivion character makes her look like my sister?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mishkax Posted February 28, 2021 Author Share Posted February 28, 2021 beyond all that though,how do you color the alpha? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pellape Posted February 28, 2021 Share Posted February 28, 2021 You do that by exporting and importing the Alpha from DXT2BMP, as I did mention earlier. So click that link, DL and install it. Drag and Drop your Normal to this window, export the alpha, edit it in gimp and save as BMP or PNG and import it back to DXT2BMP and export everything as dds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mishkax Posted February 28, 2021 Author Share Posted February 28, 2021 ahhh,i figured out how to color the alpha by using layer masks and re-merging them with the normal map Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pellape Posted February 28, 2021 Share Posted February 28, 2021 Ahh. Nice. Well there are several different ways to make a mess for sure... ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mishkax Posted February 28, 2021 Author Share Posted February 28, 2021 XD aint that right. now ive just got to fix the other parts of her texture and somehow add the new skin so i dont get seams. its gonna be difficult though for the body texture. unless there is some way to isolate luminosity variance and leave the rest untouched Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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