Gloss without emitting light

[ub3rman123]

I'm working on building a special object, a pillar with a mirrorlike square atop it. This will be placed in a dark room where probably the only light will be from a player. Right now I'm toying with trying to get the mirror material as glossy as possible without it emitting any light, because it'll look silly if it glows in a dark area. I'm not sure if it's entirely possible anyways to do this.

Here's what I have so far. It looks okay outside, except for the UV being mostly upside down.

However, when indoors, it gets a speckled pattern and glows on the dots.

Some looking into the matter shows that most shiny objects in the game actually do emit light, as this diamond shows in total darkness.

So I've got two major things to solve. First off, the speckles need to be made into more of a gradient of light, like most objects such as windows or other flat glossy planes reflect in. I don't know what property controls the pattern it glows in aside from the glowmap, which I've tried setting to solid black or removing completely.

The next problem is getting it to be reflective without emitting light. I may end up toning down the gloss if it hides the emission of light, or turning it off completely and making a texture that looks the part instead. I'll be glad to hear it if anyone knows how to do either.

For reference, I am using the texture from the ingame diamond that's got a flat normal map with a solid black alpha channel, and no glow map.

Edited May 22, 2011 by ub3rman123

[Vince]

First, the glow comes from the emissive color of the meshes material. So, in the Block Details of the NiMaterialProperty block, set the Emissive Color to black.

Second, based on your current "mirror", you will see a dramatic difference depending on the Window Reflections option. To see this, examine your "mirror", then click 'Esc' > Options > Video > Window Reflections. Click "off" or "on" to toggle it. You do not need to restart the game to see the change.

You probably want the texture Apply Mode to be APPLY_HIGHLIGHT, which appears to be what you have now. For maximum reflection you want an opaque normal map (alpha channel white, not black), saved in DXT3 or DXT5 format--not DXT1 format. (Although you will have an opaque normal map that could be saved in DXT1 format, the Oblivion engine detects normal maps in the DXT1 format and reduces the specular refection to compensate).

This should get you close.

[Artisanix]

Also it is worth to check the name of NiMaterialProperty. If it set to something else than EnvMap2 then the reflection map Oblivion uses is the same everywhere for particular object no matter where it is placed - in exterior or in interior. But if that material property name is set to EnvMap2, then engine will be using different reflection map for interiors - and that's that cheap plastic foil effect which looks acceptable for only specific kinds of objects, imho. So I try to avoid it for all costs on most of my reflective objects ;]

[ub3rman123]

EnvMap1 works well for the object because it gives it the same glow it has on the exterior, but still too much light (I'll definitely use it later!).

I've gotten it to the point of darkness I need by just setting it to be non-reflective and instead just dumping a basic shiny normal map and APPLY_MODULATE onto it.

Thanks for the suggestions!