Ask Basic Texturing Questions

[DarkRider]

Looks a bit too shiny in game. The normal map controls most of the shine. If the alpha channel of your normal map is white your texture will shine, black and it will not shine. You can edit this with GIMP and that might be a good first step to sorting out your results.

[RedDragonDreamer]

Yeah much too shiny, I added in a alpha channal black 0000 and still problems, looks even worse. even more shiny, bah, why doesn't anyone make tutorials about texturing skin? I oobviously have a setting wrong or whatever somewhere wrong but I'd be blowed if I can find a tutorial anywhere that clearly tells one the correct settings in GIMP for body replacers.

Problem 1) Too shiny

Problem 2) My tats are'nt even showing up

Problem 3) Can't find a tutorial telling correct settings

Problem 4) I'm as frustrated as hell

[The_Laughing_Man]

Tone down the shineyness wile normal mapping.

The easiest way to do this in GIMP is using the GIMP normal map plugin (remember that download link up above?) so make sure you have it installed. Then open your original texture. If the plugin is installed correctly, you should be able to go to filters - map and see a list that includes the word "normalmap." Click on it, and you get yet another dialogue with sliders.

Again, make sure the preview is enabled. With the default settings, you should see some sort of purplish thing in the window (it won't show a preview of the whole file with this one). This is because the normal map doesn't affect the color of the texture, but it tells Oblivion how much the texture should stand out or sink in over the mesh.

Smooth and Shiny

Go down to the dropdown that normally says "alpha = unchanged" and change it to "alpha channel = height." Most of your normal map will seem to disappear, with only the highlights standing out. You can get a little more depth by increasing scale, but you'll most often use this one on things that need to be shiny or translucent more than they need to stand out. Some fabrics, gems, and the occasional sword blade or ultrasmooth armor use this setting.

Don't make the mistake of setting "height source" to "alpha" in the dropdown that's just above the "alpha=unchanged" one, as that seems to make everything flatten out. (I'm still not sure why.)

Taken from the guide

As for that tattos. Are you making sure to merge them to the skin layer? I had this issue at first. Where I got some bug that caused stuff to not show up till I merged.

[Con-tur-eh]

Is there a free program that allows for use of .atn and .psd files?

[DarkRider]

I think paint.net can handle .psd but it requires a plugin http://frankblumenberg.de/doku/doku.php?id=paintnet:psdplugin

You'll have to take a peek though as I'm not 100% certain, I use GIMP and Photoshop myself.

[InsanitySorrow]

.Atn Files are strictly Photoshop files, I highly doubt there is another program that will be able to read those files

[Con-tur-eh]

I think paint.net can handle .psd but it requires a plugin http://frankblumenberg.de/doku/doku.php?id=paintnet:psdplugin

You'll have to take a peek though as I'm not 100% certain, I use GIMP and Photoshop myself.

Thanks. I was pretty sure GIMP could too, but I may be mistaken.

.Atn Files are strictly Photoshop files, I highly doubt there is another program that will be able to read those files

Okay, I thought so. Do they work with Photoshop Elements?

[DarkRider]

I believe you can open them in Photoshop Elements 6 or higher with a bit of tweaking, I haven't heard of a plugin though.

[EDIT] This might help http://community.mpix.com/forums/p/82095/749206.aspx

[LOD95]

Hi all,

Registered recenly to this forum, seems a great place to learn stuff

I have a question about texturing, I have already asked this over at Bethsoft, now to try my luck here.

I am in need of some texturing help, I want to create some runes and a black book cover, actually just a single Rune in the middle of the book, I can make it black myself, I just cannot figure how to create that Rune in the middle. Can somebody help me with this?

[DarkRider]

It's very simple. Just find the rune design you'd like to use, and copy/paste it onto the book image once you've recolored the book. When you create a normal map for the book, it will give the rune definition to make it look carved into the cover.

If you need further help start a new thread and let us know where you are getting stuck and what program you're using.

[LOD95]

Awesome! Thanks for the fastest reply ever! I will try this, clears up so much.....

I hope I can come out of this, if not I will make a new thread like you told me. Seems like a great place to learn here, kudos.

Thanks,

LOD.

[DarkRider]

Awesome! Thanks for the fastest reply ever! I will try this, clears up so much.....

I hope I can come out of this, if not I will make a new thread like you told me. Seems like a great place to learn here, kudos.

Thanks,

LOD.

You're welcome! And welcome to the Alliance!

I'll keep an eye out for a thread if you should get stuck along the way.

[Cliffworms]

Hail!

I'm currently retexturing basic things for Losing My Religion and I wondered about the legal stuff regarding it.

What I'm doing is that I took the nif file of the interior of the cathedrals and I interverted two of the windows that have the symbol of a Nine Divine on it. In the original game, the tower of the cathedral has symbols of the Nine Divines on it, but in the center is the symbol of Stendarr is more prominent than the rest. So for every cathedral dedicated to a particular god, I interverted the symbol of Stendarr with another god.

What I was wondering is that I have done little changes to the nif file. It's only a switch of textures. Is it legal to distribute it? Because the whole nif files will be part of the package and little has been done to it.

I'm also doing the exterior of the cathedrals and I would basicly include the cathderal mesh file in the package, with retextures on the stained windows.

Thanks! (And hopefully, it'll be legal.)

[InsanitySorrow]

Its Ok to distribute Nif files from Vanilla OB, since the person DL'ing the mod has to have a copy of the game. Its the DLC content that you are not allowed to distribute.

[Cliffworms]

Its Ok to distribute Nif files from Vanilla OB, since the person DL'ing the mod has to have a copy of the game. Its the DLC content that you are not allowed to distribute.

Excellent, thanks for the info IS!

[the-manta]

Ha, I bet some of you were hoping I would not get my noob fangs into this thread . I think this counts as a texturing question: how do I put retextured body parts etc (specifically a saddle) into a creature's model list?

[DarkRider]

You just need to have a folder under creatures\horse for your custom horse and add the saddle nif there along with the head and body models. Then it will appear in CS for you to assign to the horse.

[the-manta]

Ahhh, so simple! Thanks for the speedy response and patient answer.

[donnato]

Hi folks, this is probably one of those simple things I`m just overlooking something with. I`m trying to alter this texture by recoloring and adding new alpha and normalmap. the first one worked just fine but the color turned out horrible. the next three trys were all bust and the "color to alpha" isn`t working.On the first one I set the alpha color close to the oeiginal instead of black as we`re told to do in the tuts.These last tries I`ve used black and it won`t work.

I`m shooting for a semi shiny metal surface. Here`s a screen of what I`ve got in the gimp...My link

[InsanitySorrow]

Your alpha channel should be either black, white or a shade of grey. But that's only if you want to add shine/gloss to your texture. If you don't want anything like that just copy and paste your texture into the alpha channel, it should show as a greyscale image there. This will make sure the texture correctly reflects light in-game.

[donnato]

Your alpha channel should be either black, white or a shade of grey. But that's only if you want to add shine/gloss to your texture. If you don't want anything like that just copy and paste your texture into the alpha channel, it should show as a greyscale image there. This will make sure the texture correctly reflects light in-game.

Thanks IS, it`s a metallic surface so yeah it should shine some(not to mention being wet)I tried setting the color to black as I said but when I hit OK there`s only a slight blurring of the image.As you can see I haven`t flattened because that wouldnt work for the alpha either. Maybe I really don`t need to do this but I`ve done several of these and never had this much trouble.Could the brightness of the image have something to do with it?

I`ll try white now,just in case.

[donnato]

Black was there just didn`t show up, white was totally wonky and looked rezzed out, grey is what I used. Let me know if this looks too...what?

My linkMy link

[StarX]

A completely white alpha has a terrible result most of the time. I usually just stick to a lighter or darker version of the greyscale image. People should also be aware that the material properties in NifSkope can have a huge effect on what your texture actually looks like in the game.

[ZuTheSkunk]

Okay, it's again me, with new problem in new class of Oblivion Enclave...

I wanted to do a simple recolour of eye texture from Beautiful People mod, just to change red colour of iris into more blue one. But for some reason game refuses to show my changed texture. My question is - why? Is this a matter of wrong alpha? The 5 number is the highest in my program. I'm using Paint.NET program, so it's a bit different than Photoshop or GIMP.

Here are the textures, original and changed, to make a comparison.

[Hanaisse]

I've recoloured a house, specifically skhouseupper04.nif, and I notice there's an skhouseupper04_far.nif file as well, which I assume is the "distant" view of the house.

So my question is, and I think I know the answer... should I recolour the _far.nif the same as the house?

Also, I notice the _far.nif uses lowres textures. What's the difference between a regular texture and a lowres texture?