Problem with shiny textures

[TheUnknownChemist]

I have a slight problem with a model or maybe a texture I am not sure which, but it is a visual problem hence why I post here.

The problem is the sword has a shine to it, a glossiness that is similar to a glass weapon.

I do not know how I have this shiny texture, as in blender I did nothing to change the texture (as far as I am aware) I have made other swords the same way and no shiny weapon.

In nifskope the NiMaterialProperty is set to material: ambient is grey, diffuse whitish, spec is grey and emissive is white (so it can glow) not an EnvMap2 that produces the glass shine.

I have also checked the diffuse textures for unwanted alpha channels or something that shouldn't be. I have experimented with the normal map, made it light, dark, a mixture of the two; I even tried an unedited normal map. I have tried it with and without glow maps as well.

All through these tests the sword remains nice and shiny, I can't work out why. All paths are correct and files placed in the right folders. If anyone can help me resolve this it would be great. I may be doing something very obviously wrong but it is past my expertise.

I can post screenshots if it will help, I will also happily send the nif and texture files for anyone that might want a closer look. just pm me.

Thanks in advance

[Artisanix]

I could ask many question, but to save the time you could upload a mesh somewhere and your textures - just quick look and all will be known ;]

Anyway:

If you have emissive colour set to something else than black you should use a glow map file _g that defines areas which should glow, otherwise the whole object will be emitting the light.

[TheUnknownChemist]

http://www.mediafire.com/?g9h4lhci3qb8y5s

That's a quick rar file with the textures and nif file (not the blend file can add if needed) any help would be great thanks

I have a glow map already made and in use. You will see what I mean when it's opened, just baffles my brain this is one of the first meshes I made for the crystal collection, so not sure what happened.

[Artisanix]

all is rather fine with your weapon, you only need to darken your textures and channels some more, and do couple of other things...

- update tangent space for model,

- make solid faces on blade instead of the smooth ones,

- darken colour map texture slightly,

- darken glow map texture and provide some details for it,

- darken a bit alpha of normal map

- set emissive color to white

- face normals option in Nifskope can fix reflections on handle

also this is very trivial mistake, but make sure you do not test your weapons on character that has some enchantments on apparel or armor as it makes the whole character (with weapons included) to glow with a cheap reflective plastic effect... of course if you have the mod that removes such glow, then all should be fine...

[TheUnknownChemist]

Okay cool thanks for taking a look at it, half of what you said is new to me, like updating tangent spaces and making solid faces on the blade. Not that clued up on nifskope

Texture wise what you mentioned I can do.

What I don't get still is why it is so shiny what setting has made it like that, I test with my character in the all together to avoid any conflict of enchanted armour ect and none of my other swords shine like this one yet they all are set up the same way.

I will look into what you mentioned and how to change what needs to be changed and see if it has the desired effect. thanks

[Artisanix]

You sword is bright not because of one but few things ;]

alpha channel of normal map defines how shiny the objects is (how much light it reflects) - and most of it is too light in your texture

glow map defines how strong certain areas of object glow, and you have set those to pure white

update tangent space should always be used after you do some work in 3D app, as it does no harm to the mesh but fixes some texture distortions (in nifskope: spells - batch - update all tangent spaces)

face normals command in nifskope (R-click on mesh and from menu: mesh -> face normals) should not be used most of the time, but in some situation on certain areas when there are troubles with light reflections from some triangles (visible as dark patches) it is quite often very helpful and eliminates those issues (like on your's sword handle)

your sword's blade has faces set to smooth mode, so this makes it round and doesn't look as sharp as it could - in Blender in edit mode just select the whole blade and from menu chose Mesh -> Faces - Set Solid - this should improve blade's edges and it will look more sharp.

[TheUnknownChemist]

After looking in nifskope I found what you mentioned about face normals and update tangent, I darkened texture of diffuse and normal map and for the glow made a light greyscale image of the selected areas from the diffuse map. Not to sure how it all works but it does no more shiny, I must have my other swords set for a darker normal map hence no shine and all (might have to play about making them shiny, just to test and learn)

And in blender I just set the whole mesh to set smooth from the editing(F9) window to all my meshes, I thought that was just how it looked when rendered didn't realise it had an effect outside of blender to. Which is handy Alwasy wanted the blades more solid looking

Thanks for all the help Trollf got enough info here to pick apart for a few hours now

[Vince]

Your Blender model is a good start for a weapon, but there are several things you can do different that will make it better. I agree with some of what Trollf suggests, but respectfully disagree with some.

First, you should not export the sword with Set Solid. Although that will fix the strange shading, there will be visible faceting where you don't want it. It's easiest to see the problem without the texture applied. You can do this in NifSkope using Render > Settings and temporarily unchecking Textures. You can also easily see it with solid shading in Blender. See the three images below.

Initial sword in Blender with shading issues:

Sword with shading issues removed:

Sword with sharp transition between blade body and edge restored:

The shading issues were removed using the Blender EdgeSplit modifier. Note that you will need to actually apply the modifier before export. The sharp transition between the body of the blade and the edge portion was restored using Mark Sharp on the bounding edges. You will only see the effect of Mark Sharp if there is an EdgeSplit modifier. You may want to use mark sharp on portions of the guard, grip, or pommel. Experiment with it and changing the Split Angle in the EdgeSplit modifier panel.

There are other issues. Your .nif file includes NiStencilProperty and NiSpecularProperty blocks which you don't need. You can keep Blender from exporting the NiStencilProperty by unhighlighting Double Sided in Blender. You can keep Blender from exporting the NiSpecularProperty by setting the specular (Spe) color to black in the Material panel.

I agree with Trollf that the alpha of your normal map should be a bit darker (more transparent) and it's always a good idea to use the NifSkope Spell: Update All Tangent Spaces on any .nif file that you export.

I apologize that I'm not explaining why you have the dark shading on your mesh and why the EdgeSplit modifier fixes it. It is a rather complex issue of how surface normals are calculated from the bounding vertex normals for shading purposes. I've been meaning to write up something for TESA on this and will do so soon.

I may add more later, but these are the big lumps.

EDIT: I agree with Trollf's comment about the grip. You're using 32 faces around. With smoothing, somewhere between 12 to 20 is usually enough.

[Artisanix]

Vince,

thanks for providing more advanced yet far more accurate way of handling those light issues...

in such a case Facing Normals should not be used in NifSkope I think...

and I didn't propose to convert the whole sword to solid faces but only the blade, but anyway, well... ;]

and one more thing comes to mind when I think about "improving" this sword - the hilt. In comparison to blade or guard it has too many geometric details, you may want to merge some of those vertices to make it simpler without sacrificing the quality that much.

[TheUnknownChemist]

Wow lot's of info, trying to make sense of it all never used EdgeSplit modifier but just tried it and I can't seem to get it to work, it just sets the whole object solid. will do some reading up on it.

I will try to remodel the hilt a bit was never that happy with it's size. A lot of the info given has already improved on the sword and my knowledge. Still new to all this and seems there is always more to learn

[Vince]

Try the following:

1> Add a cube.

2> Switch to edge select in Edit mode and select all.

3> Press 'W' and choose Subdivide Multi and accept the default 2 cuts.

4> Click Set Smooth. Switch to Object mode. It should look horrible at this point.

5> Click Add Modifier and choose EdgeSplit. It should look dramatically better now.

From there, start experimenting and learning.

[TheUnknownChemist]

Ahh yes indeed it does, played about with it a fair bit last night. Can see the benefit of using it for sure. Thanks Vince one thing about edge split can you use it on only a specific part of a mesh or does it have to be all of it, like say I just wanted to isolate the blade for use with edge split.