thimblyjoe Posted January 19, 2009 Share Posted January 19, 2009 So I've been reskinning some of my armor and so far it looks pretty good, but I can't figure out what all the colors mean when editing my dds for the normal/gloss file. When I just wipe it clean down to the basic color, it has the desired texture (completely flat and glossy) but it looks bulkier than it did. Is there a way to make the material less thick? I'm new at this so be kind. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skree000 Posted January 19, 2009 Share Posted January 19, 2009 the shiney effect is caused by a specular map, or absence thereof. The specular map slot is the alpha channel inside the normals map. Open up the normals map.dds in photoshop, click the channels button. you should see RGB, then Alpha. Inside that is a grayscale high contrast version of your color texture. This texture is called a spec map, and it dictates what parts of the texture are shiney and reflective. White is shiney, black is matte and absorbs light instead of reflects. By default when you remove the normals, you end up making the specular White, since there is nothing left. (also when people import normal maps they forget to add spec to the alpha channel, and things look all shiney) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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