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Graphic Artistry: Lesson #2


InsanitySorrow
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GA_Lesson02_Title.png

Welcome Back, Student!

Part One: What are we going to do?

In our last lesson we made a simple re-colouring of a vanilla texture, this time we'll still be working with vanilla textures, but instead of doing another recolour how about we change part of the texture so it looks different?

What we're going to be doing is taking the Steel Armor texture and changing the fur parts to something new, hmmm I'm thinking chainmail, yep we'll go with chainmail.

With that said, open your Skyrim - Textures.bsa again and extract the Steel Armor. Once you have it extracted open up the steelarmor.dds file in your 2D application of choice.

Part Two: Separating Parts

Class02_01.jpg

As you can see there are a few fur parts to this armor, we'll need to change all of these parts if we want the armor to look good. To make things easier for ourselves later on what we'll do is separate the fur from the rest of the armor texture.

"How are we going to do that?", I hear you say, well simple really, we'll delete what's not needed.

First we'll duplicate the layer so we're working with a copy and have the original sitting there untouched, so in your Layers list Right-Click your armor texture and select Duplicate Layer, name it Fur.

Class02_02.jpg

Now we simply take our Eraser tool and start removing everything except the fur.

:smarty: Smarty Says: Don't worry too much about getting everything perfectly erased, once we've learned the techniques we can go back and improve later.

And this is what we end up with:

Class02_06.jpg

Wasn't too difficult was it?

Part Three: Applying the new material

The hard part is done, now what we'll do is take a nice Chainmail image/texture and we'll apply it. Luckily for us :smarty: has found one we can use, isn't he nice? :dance:

:smarty: Smarty Says: Right Click and SaveAs to download the Chainmail. Be sure to save it somewhere where it's handy, we'll be using it next.

Class02_Chainmail.png

After downloading the Chainmail open it up in your 2D application, copy it and paste it into your armor texture. It'll be added as a new layer.

Class02_04.jpg

:smarty: Smarty Says: If you find the Chainmail links are too big for your tastes, then after opening the Chainmail texture resize it to 512x512 and copy/paste this onto your armor texture, move it over the fur, repeat the process to cover all the fur. You can then merge all those layers.

This is where our separate fur layer comes in handy, Take your Magic Wand Tool and click on the fur layer anywhere where it's blank. This will select the area outside of our fur, now click the Chainmail layer and hit the delete button. All the chainmail around our fur is gone and only the fur remains covered.

:smarty: Smarty Says: For GIMP users the tool you need is the Fuzzy Select Tool.

Class02_07.jpg

Not bad eh?, Well it is a little bright, so we'll fix that. With the chainmail selected open your Brightness/Contrast tool. Set the Brightness to -60 and the Contrast to +20. Now we have a better fitting chainmail layer.

Class02_08.jpg

With our texture done we can save it, remember our steps from Lesson #1?, Follow those steps except save as DXT5 instead of DXT1.

All done?, Let's move on.

Part Four: Normal Map

Since we've just edited part of the original texture, we'll have to make a new normal map so that we don't have part of the original textures bump for the fur causing our chainmail to look wrong in-game.

:smarty: Smarty Says: For those of you using GIMP and are unsure how to make or work with normal maps, you should find DarkRider's Retexturing Oblivion Workshop very helpful.

Open up the SteelArmor.dds you just saved, copy it CTRL+C then in your Layer list add a new channel and paste in the texture. You should now have a greyscale version of the armor texture in a channel called Alpha 1.

Class02_09.jpg

The Alpha channel controls how the texture shines/reflects light in-game, darker areas are dull and lighter areas are brighter/more shine. As you can see our Alpha is pretty dull, so let's use our Brightness/Contrast tools again to make it brighter.

Class02_10.jpg

:smarty: Smarty Says: Copy the Alpha Channel make a new image and paste it in, we'll be using that later on.

Go back to your Layers list making sure that the texture is in full colour (Click the top layer in the channels list). We're going to make our normal map.

:smarty: Smarty Says: For PS users it's Filters>Nvidia Tools>Normal Map Filter, for GIMP users it's Filters>Map>Normal Map.

Find the Normal Map filter in your Filter Menu and run it, we'll use the following settings for it:

  • Filter Type: 4 Sample
  • Check Invert Y
  • Scale: 5
  • Select Max (RGB)

Photoshop Users:

PS_NMSettings.jpg

GIMP Users:

GIMP_NMSettings.jpg

With that done we now have our new Normal Map, we can now go ahead and save it, use the same settings we used for the main texture, save it as SteelArmor_n.dds.

Class02_11.jpg

Part Five: Environment Mask/Map

Remember what :smarty: said about copying the Alpha channel and placing it in a new image?, Well we're going to use this now.

The Environment Mask/Map is another texture that controls how the environments light interacts with our textures, again this controls things like how our texture will shine. The effects of this texture are combined with our Alpha Channel.

What we'll do is save this texture as a DXT1 DDS file with the name SteelArmor_m.dds.

This is the suffix that is used on vanilla textures, you may have noticed our steel armor already had one before we made our changes.

Part Six: Nifskope Magic

Sometimes we don't want to replace something from the game, instead we want to make something new. Well to do this we'll need to use another tool called Nifskope. But enough on that for the minute, there are a couple of things we need to do.

We need to move our newly created textures into our Data folder, let's put them in this folder structure this time:

Textures>Armor>GraphicsArtistry

Open up Fallout 3 Archive Utility again, but this time open the Skyrim - Meshes.bsa file and extract the Steel Armor Meshes.

Copy the following files into Meshes>Armor>GraphicsArtistry inside your Data Folder.

  • 1stpersoncuirass_0.nif
  • 1stpersoncuirass_1.nif
  • Cuirass_0.nif
  • Cuirass_1.nif

Now the Nifskope bit, download Nifskope 1.1.0 RC5, extract it into a folder somewhere easy to access like your desktop. Look in the folder and run the Nifskope.exe file.

You'll be greeted with a nice new screen something like this:

Class02_Nifskope.jpg

Click the Load button in the top left corner, a browse window will open up, navigate to your Data folder and open the Cuirass_0.nif file inside the GraphicArtistry Meshes Folder.

You'll see the NIF pop into the render window to the right.

Class02_12.jpg

What we want to do here is adjust the texture links inside the model so that it points to our new texture instead of the vanilla one. So at the very top of the Block List on the left, click the small arrow to expand the tree list. Now click on the SteelArmorHeavyFur node to select it, again click the little arrow to the left to expand the tree. Click the BSLightingShaderProperty and again expand the tree, you should now see a BSShaderTextureSet node under that. This is where the textures are linked in the model, click it.

If you don't have the details pane open, press F3 and it'll pop up at the bottom of the screen.

Class02_14.jpg

In the Details Pane, click the little arrow to expand the tree, here you will see all the textures our armor is using.

Class02_15.jpg

Click the purple flower icon to the left of the very first texture in the list, this will bring up a browse window. Navigate and select your SteelArmor.dds file in your GraphicsArtistry Textures folder. You'll notice it's now showing up in Nifskope on the armor.

Repeat this for the SteelArmor_n.dds and the SteelArmor_m.dds by editing the second line and the sixth line in the list.

Class02_16.jpg

With all those done you'll see this:

Class02_17.jpg

Now before we save this we need to do one thing, we need to edit each of our texture links to make sure there is nothing before Textures, for example - textures\armor\graphicsartistry\steelarmor.dds

With all that done, click File>SaveAs, overwrite when asked.

Repeat this process with the Cuirass_1.NIF, 1stpersoncuirass_0.NIF and 1stpersoncuirass_1.NIF file.

Phew!, all done :faint:. All our texture work and Nifskope work is done so we can move onto the Creation Kit work now.

Part Seven: Creation Kit

Now the easier bit, we get to put what we learned in the CK Basics classes to use on our armor :dance:. In the Object List expand the armor section, scroll down to the steel and click it, on the right side of the panel double click the ArmorSteelCuirassB to open up the armor.

To make it our own we first change the Editor ID, change it to aaGASteelArmor, click ok and say yes to making a new item.

Class02_18.jpg

Open up our new armor, for now we can keep most of the stats the same since we only want to change the looks. If you look over to the right you will see a model's list, double click the item in it to open it.

Class02_19.jpg

Change the Editor ID of this item to aaGASteelPlateCuirass.

Now the fun part, we get to change the Biped Model paths. Edit the Following:

Class02_20.jpg

Once that is done, click ok and save as a new Object. Go back to the model list and remove the SteePlateCuirassAA item and in the Object Window click the armor add-on option then drag and drop our new item from the top of that list into the model list.

Class02_21.jpg

The last thing to do is drag and drop this into the game somewhere, the location is entirely up to you, I added mine inside the Warmaiden's interior in Whiterun.

Save your plugin and go admire your hard work :thumbup:

Class02InGame.jpg

Posting Screenshots:

Post screenshots of the following:

  • Texture with final chainmail edit
  • Normal Map
  • Alpha Channel
  • Environment Map
  • Folder structure
  • NIF texture paths
  • New item in the Creation Kit
  • In-Game screenshot

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GA_Homework_Title.png

The key to improving your skills is repetition. This assignment is worth 5pts and the extra credit is worth 5pts. You need 120pts to earn a medal for the Graphics Artistry Class. So do your assignment and post a screenshot here when you are done! :smarty:

Assignment:

  • Steelboot.dds - Change the fur to Chainmail
  • steelgauntlets.dds - Change the fur to Chainmail

Extra Credit:

  • Add Boots and Gauntlets into the game as new items

Post screenshots of each in your 2D Application of choice and the final result in-game. For the Extra Credit show a screenshot of the new item in the Creation Kit.

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NifScope problem D:

Okay, the textures show up fine with the full path, but after I change it from:

c:\program files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\skyrim\data\textures\armor\graphicsartistry\steelarmor.dds

to

textures\armor\graphicsartistry\steelarmor.dds

The texture no longer shows up on the model. D:

Screenshots:

Before Pathchange:

ASG2_Working.png

After Pathchange:

ASG2_working-2.png

Is there something that I'm doing wrong?

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I'm having a nightmare with this. But I'm still trying.

Edit: I finally managed to get the chainmail applied to the armor and I've made a normal map. I'm lost making a new Alpha1 channel and copying the image or whatever all that means. I already have an alpha channel.

Edited by Arion
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I'm pleased to see people trying to help. but keep this in mind:

[info=Enclave Etiquette]Do not instruct students in a classroom if you are not the assigned scholar. While it is tempting to help someone in need, resist. Scholars do not appreciate having inexperienced students confused by second opinions, no matter how well intentioned and answering questions helps Scholars develop the class.[/info]

Arion:

I'm going to look over GIMP again and explain the details better. If you already have an Alpha channel you can skip that bit, instead open up main texture, de-saturate it and then save as yourtexture_m with DXT1 compression.

That'll give you an environment map to use.

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I'm pleased to see people trying to help. but keep this in mind:

[info=Enclave Etiquette]Do not instruct students in a classroom if you are not the assigned scholar. While it is tempting to help someone in need, resist. Scholars do not appreciate having inexperienced students confused by second opinions, no matter how well intentioned and answering questions helps Scholars develop the class.[/info]

Arion:

I'm going to look over GIMP again and explain the details better. If you already have an Alpha channel you can skip that bit, instead open up main texture, de-saturate it and then save as yourtexture_m with DXT1 compression.

That'll give you an environment map to use.

Sorry about that, won't happen again :)

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I've finished lesson 2, here are both the assignment and extra credit. If you think I missed something let me know:

Chestpiece

Final Chestpiece Texture:

http://i.imgur.com/0JNA3.jpg

Normal Map:

http://i.imgur.com/9sLLa.jpg

Alpha Channel:

http://i.imgur.com/gnlDp.jpg

Environment Map:

http://i.imgur.com/yzQjs.jpg

Texture Folder structure:

http://i.imgur.com/burff.jpg

Mesh Folder structure:

http://i.imgur.com/aNYyl.jpg

NIF Texture Paths 1-4:

http://i.imgur.com/m9CLr.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Q5ezp.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ZB90T.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Rb721.jpg

New Chestpiece in the Creation Kit:

http://i.imgur.com/7azyO.jpg

Assignment/Extra Credit

Final Boot Texture:

http://i.imgur.com/jJucd.jpg

Final Gauntlet Texture:

http://i.imgur.com/w081x.jpg

New Boots in the Creation Kit:

http://i.imgur.com/rUI2U.jpg

New Gauntlets in the Creation Kit:

http://i.imgur.com/s7dVc.jpg

In-Game Shots

Screenshot 1:

http://i.imgur.com/mFAO3.jpg

Screenshot 2:

http://i.imgur.com/Furv0.jpg

Screenshot 3:

http://i.imgur.com/V96SU.jpg

On a side note, when saving the Environment Map as a DXT1, it should be 1 bit alpha right? Thanks in advance.

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Here's what I came up with for the homework.

Classwork

Texture

gallery_1192_153_2869.jpg

Normal Map

gallery_1192_153_80482.jpg

Alpha Map

gallery_1192_153_702.jpg

Environment Map

gallery_1192_153_74302.jpg

Folder Structure

CK New Armor

CK Models

NifScope Edit

InGame 01

gallery_1192_153_18946.jpg

Homework and Assignment/Extra Credit

Final Boot Texture

gallery_1192_153_9197.jpg

New Boot in CK

gallery_1192_153_5130.jpg

Final Gauntlet Texture

gallery_1192_153_2898.jpg

New Gauntlet in CK

gallery_1192_153_73742.jpg

Ingame Picture All Items

gallery_1192_153_38999.jpg

I've updated my post with new pictures. And I set my album to public so they can been seen. I've reworked all the files. For the environment file - when I copied the alpha that I saved to the normal file like you said and tried to save it I got a message that the alpha data would be lost. :shrug:

So what I did was take the original edited texture file and desaturated it with gimp and saved it as a _m.dds

I'm using a trial version of Photoshop as a last resort to do the classwork.

Edited by Arion
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I've finished lesson 2, here are both the assignment and extra credit. If you think I missed something let me know:

On a side note, when saving the Environment Map as a DXT1, it should be 1 bit alpha right? Thanks in advance.

Save it as DXT1 No Alpha.

Your work looks good and you have everything there, full marks :thumbup:, Lesson #3 should (hopefully) be up soon.

I have no idea what "alpha' you want. I'm not even sure how I got what I have right now. The ingame model still shows fur. <-- the one laying on the ground as well as the one in inventory.

If I need something else let me know and if this is correct I will attempt the extra credit. :)

Your environment map looks a little bright, but other than that your work looks good :yes:

Basically what you need is a copy of the environment map placed in the Alpha channel of the normal map. Take a look at DarkRider's Retexturing Oblivion Part 2.

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Here come my results for Lesson 2 using GIMP

Homework:

Final chainmail:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/UmrCL2kz5eoST7GBXCbmCcPrtvMIsBCnarRlj-VdDU8?feat=directlink

Normal Map:

I used to make normals in Gimp for Oblivion the way Dark Rider describes in his tutorial and I did this here again.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/4dgl4S4HIhGyHaUth65u58PrtvMIsBCnarRlj-VdDU8?feat=directlink

In my steelarmor.dds the alpha channel already exists so I skipped the step of adding such a channel. The important step is „color to alpha“. When you leave this out, the result is a too shiny armor.

Alpha Channel:

This part I cannot reproduce. There must be something different with Gimp. I can create a new channel but I simply cannot copy something into this channel. This does not work for me in Gimp.

Environment Map:

As mentioned above adding a dds to an Alpha channel did not work in Gimp. So I made a new file, copied the steelarmor.dds there, desaturated it, adjusted brightness and contrast and saved as _m.dds.

You commented for Arion: „Your environment map looks a little bright, ....“

I cannot see Arions pics as he has set his album hidden to the public, but I have the same problem. The environment map becomes much too bright when I use your settings for Gimp.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/6HpBKlVVvX_Mgl-ENTucnsPrtvMIsBCnarRlj-VdDU8?feat=directlink

So I made it less bright to make it look more like your pic and the pics of the other students.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/b955-TwRXgejgX-N-M_-esPrtvMIsBCnarRlj-VdDU8?feat=directlink

Folder structure:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/kCRrOXVNjghA7H5u8N1kXMPrtvMIsBCnarRlj-VdDU8?feat=directlink

NIF texture paths:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/lmB-UwKzrIdkNfYtcCotHcPrtvMIsBCnarRlj-VdDU8?feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/zaFhcRew_tCsaJynPUL0CsPrtvMIsBCnarRlj-VdDU8?feat=directlink

New item in the Creation Kit:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ID-F7ixIb3nw15ERCKrd88PrtvMIsBCnarRlj-VdDU8?feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/4J3u_TAQV0EAjVW2gCPvx8PrtvMIsBCnarRlj-VdDU8?feat=directlink

Assignment:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/TKxxBOvq2dfJkbqwVp1Ge8PrtvMIsBCnarRlj-VdDU8?feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Hnq52lxzvSPqbwQggPF-ssPrtvMIsBCnarRlj-VdDU8?feat=directlink

Extra Credit:

Boots:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/3tdm_53gK_p4kUrW9U9JqsPrtvMIsBCnarRlj-VdDU8?feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Q6jfbEwRFNuj1rArfyGQhsPrtvMIsBCnarRlj-VdDU8?feat=directlink

Gauntlets:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/NitioO0XgIMabqytI3S9r8PrtvMIsBCnarRlj-VdDU8?feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/0xkH8nk29XvXHK_fIVIAXMPrtvMIsBCnarRlj-VdDU8?feat=directlink

In-Game screenshots of all:

I scaled down the chainmail texture which looks good for the cuirass but seems to be too small for gauntlets and boots. I realized that only when I went into the game to take screenshots but I didn’t want to do the work all over again.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/FY3UvAGdNq6ERPjaANCCcsPrtvMIsBCnarRlj-VdDU8?feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/tCdZI7WMAPKB9lHz57yEJcPrtvMIsBCnarRlj-VdDU8?feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/zKJsDZwQJc_iYt71M3gl98PrtvMIsBCnarRlj-VdDU8?feat=directlink

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I used the 120/90 settings for my environment map... Maybe the setting are different than in PS. I noticed it also on the first texture we did where everyone's was grey and mine was black. Settings there were -60/+20 :shrug:

I think I'm hopeless. I can't add an alpha channel to either the regular texture, the normal map nor the environment map. Following DR's instructions the Add alpha channel is greyed out.

I'm so frustrated at this point I'm about to break something.

Edited by Arion
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@Tamira - Works looks good, full marks well done :goodjob: It's also good to see you adjusting things yourself to get correct look, I know sometimes it can be a pain.

@Arion - For the brightness, do as Tamira did and alter the settings so you get the same look, the values I used aren't important if they don't work for you. Don't worry about the normal map for the time being, we'll find a solution :yes:

For the environment map, again do as Tamira did (And I mentioned above), make a copy of your armor texture, open it and greyscale it. Save it with the _m suffix and that'll be fixed.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Right then, I seem to be having difficulties in comprehension and ability straight from the box. :wallbash:

Am I correct in this understanding? The default behavior for the eraser tool is to not show your work on the fly in the big picture? And is this default behavior only applicable to .dds files? I've never driven blind with an eraser tool in photo retouching; this is very awkward for me and I'm not doing so well with the results.

Is there any way to change the default behavior? I've done a google search, but unfortunately I'm not finding anything useful.. Probably because I'm not using proper words for a search term, or ... it doesn't exist. :rofl:

Help? :cookie4u:

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Photoshop

I think my hubby has gotten it through my head what is happening, which in turn makes me feel, um, dumb? Because it's in-line with exactly what you just said.

It's a view problem I'm having, you're right. :cookie4u: I'm seeing my original image underneath, so I can't see where I've been. :rofl:

He'll help get me sorted. I think, well, as much is possible. LOL

Thank you!

:thumbup:

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