Help a new modder with her texture issues

[spontaneite]

So I'm learning modding because I have epic ideas for Skyrim and modding is the only way they're going to happen.

 

I decided to start out retexturing a werewolf skin to suit my Racemenu-blue character. Because when you're playing a blue khajiit the werewolf just looks weird. So I did all the technical steps right - went into the game and took beast form. Nice and blue, with the markings I intended. Except there's weird...weirdness. I'm not sure how to describe it - it's like there's white lines and bits of nasty where the pieces of texture connect. Is that something that generally happens if you go over the set lines of a texture? I have frankly no idea. Help out a newb?

 

Edit: Full list of what I did

1) extracted textures from .bsa

2) opened werewolfbody.dds and werewolfhead.dds in photoshop

3) did a lot of editing - some with gradient maps, others just by general going over with the paintbrush tool. General use of dodge, burn, and sponge tools. Some colour replacement

4) saved the .dds files into the relevant textures/actors/character/werewolf area

 

 

[Rennn]

Ah, I've seen this problem before. I'm not sure how to fix it, but I know other people have managed to fix it. Hopefully one of them shows up and tells you what went wrong...

 

But no, generally if you go out of the lines in a texture the area outside the usable texture will just not show up. The mesh "knows" which part of a texture goes to each part of a mesh, due to a handy thing called a UV map.

[jiffyadvent]

I viewed and brightened up the image, couldn't see a thing.

 

It seems like you may have painted over the edges of the Werewolf's skin. Which could be the most likely cause, as that those edges are where the UV mapping might be repeated/wrapped/reused by the map.

 

The UV mapping is defined by the mesh on how a texture will wrap around in different ways to a specific area of the model.

[spontaneite]

Ah, how handy.

 

I took the base textures out again and did nothing but slap on a gradient mask and it did the same thing. Thanks for your response - I certainly hope so too. I would hate for my modding career to end so early.

 

Could it be something to do with saving it as .dds from photoshop?

[spontaneite]

I haven't touched the meshes. As for painting over the edges of the werewolf's skin - I tested that. Did nothing but recolour it and it still did the same thing. I'll go take an image in daylight if you'd like.

[jiffyadvent]

I also suggest to get Nifskope and view and extract the werewolf mesh. The right click on a specific part of the werewolf mesh and select -.> Texture -> Edit UV which you would get something like this:

 

 

http://s20.postimg.org/age3gnon1/Untitled_1.jpg

 

 

Which really comes in handy as you get to see the UV mapping and how it warps and wraps to a specific part of the mesh.

 

Sometimes it could be, as the Nvidia DDS plugin doesn't load alpha channels of textures. You could use an external DDS to PNG converter if the texture has a translucency or transparent channel.

 

 

Yes I think a daylight shot would be easier to see what the issue might be, as the image is still somewhat shady.

Edited May 14, 2013 by jeclxohko

[spontaneite]

I have nifskope already, so I'll go have a look at that in a sec. Cheers

 

 

daylight image of the texture with just the gradient map:

 

 

[jiffyadvent]

I just checked the "werewolfbody.dds" and it does have alpha channels. I think that maybe just about the problem there. I see it from the arm just below the elbow.

 

You need to be able to load up werewolffbody.dds in Photoshop with it's transparency channel. As I said again I don't think the Nvidia DDS plugin loads it, you can check this by loading again the texture and you would see the transparency channel has been filled with a neutral grey background.

 

Usually what I do is to convert the DDS to another format such as TGAs & PNGs and load it up in Photoshop, then re-save as a DDS.

[spontaneite]

Photoshop did warn me it was saving without alpha channels, but being very new to this modding business I don't have a great deal of understanding for this.

 

So you suggest converting the basic DDS to, for example, PNG, opening it in photoshop and editing it, and then saving as DDS again? Won't that still lose the alpha channels? I do have GIMP and the dds plugin, but I didn't want to work on it as it wasn't interacting properly with my graphics tablet.

[jiffyadvent]

Retexture the skin again and save it in either DXT5; ARGB DDS format, or 8.8.8.8 ARGB.

 

Whenever you see the "A" prefix for the different number of formats you can save to it means that it supports alpha channels.

 

What I mean by the neutral grey thing was that PS fills in the transparency layer of a DDS with grey on load, so there is no way accurate way of telling if the texture you loaded has transparencies.