Alphas 1:2 normals and effect glows

[Loony]

Hello good TES community.

I've got a few more questions I'd like to ask.

Firstly  I've been working on a texture of a flag that relies on alphas to show where is visible and where is not. I created a new channel in photoshop CS3 and applied white to  where i want visible and black to where i want hidden. I exported the DDS and  gave it a whirl in Maya 2008 and it looked dandy, I made sure the alpha was set to 1 in NIFScope and then saved out the Nif. When I placed it into oblivion however the black covered areas were visible.

Is there a special work flow to import alphas into oblivion?

Second, I need to create a Normal Map for the flag but when I use nvidias plugin for photoshop it complains about the depth not being a factor of 2 and the  width and height not being equal. The image  size is 512x1024.  How can  I generate a normal map for my flag? Putting it in  game without a normal map makes it extremely dark.

And finally, when a weapon  has a magic effect like fire it has a nice glowy effect (orange if fire). How is this effect done? Is it a matter of setting the mesh  color to orange and using a glow map? If yes can someone tell me which color wheels I have to change  in NiFScope to make an object glow? I've often tried to make glowy objects with glow maps and it rarely works and when it does the effect is not as obvious. If not can someone tell me how exactly is this effect done?

Thanks for the  help people

I look  forward to your reply.

[WindmillTilter]

Most of those questions are answered in VInce's Textures 101 stickied in this forum.  

In brief you need to add a NiAlpha property to you NiTriStips in Nifscope for the alpha to work.

It's the emissive colour also in the NiTriStrips that effects the glow. You can either set it to white and colour in the portions of your glowmap in the appropriate colour, or if you only need orange you can set the emissive colour to orange and just use black and white on the glowmap to control where. It is a fairly subtle effect though, only really noticible in low light conditions. The glow on enchanted weapons is actually controlled by the game engine, I don't know any way to achieve that on a banner.

The warning in Photshop should only show up when your hight and width don't aren't factors of 2. 512x1024 should be safe. I'd double check the size and make sure it didn't get altered somehow. If you're only using it for a spec map (to make the banner brighter) you could use a MUCH smaller one to save on resources, say 8x8. If there's no variation in the colour on your texture then you won't loose anything.

Hope that helps,

WT

[Loony]

thanks for that i'll  give the texturing 101 a quick read as well. As for the glow effect I don't want  it on a  banner I was just curious how  it gets done so I may use  it later on other game items.

and the error for the normal  map reads: width and  heigh must be the same, depth has to be a factor of 2.

i'll try the 8x8 idea since there are no details to be stored, but the colors are different i'll give it a quick toss.

[Loony]

With a 8x8  normal map and even  when i tried to copy the texture twice in a 1024x1024 texture then convert to normal map the banner looks way too bright and purplish

alphas working fine though so now down to two questions  

Edit

for everyone else who might end up with a Purple sparky? Make sure you have an alpha  in your normal map and  it's black.

now what about those nice weapon effects?

[WindmillTilter]

If your normal map doesn't have any details (such as for a flat banner) you don't need to copy the texture into it (usally doesn't make a great normal map anyway). For a flat normal map you can skip the Nvidia tool and do it manualy. Just fill in your new 8x8 image with R128 G128 B255 (flat), and of course as you said add an alpha channel with the apropriate specular level. (I'd stay away from straight black)

For the cool weapon glows simply add an enchantment to the weapon in the CS, and the engine will asign the apropriate effect.

Would you mind posting a screenshot of the settings you use for the Normal Map plugin, would be worth figuring out what's going on there for next time.

WT