My texture-related questions I havn't seen explained well...

[Running4Cover]

Okay, I have only been texturing for a few months now, but in that time I have tried to scour all of the Gimp/Nifskope tutorials on the CS UESP.  In these tutorials, I have learned a lot, but some of them either failed to explain things clearly, or made reference to things I don't fully understand.  Anyway, I figured I would make one post here with my questions, and see what you Gurus here could tell me   ... ... ...

That said, here are my questions (at this time :-P)

#1 - Not so much a question as just something a need an explanation or tutorial of; Alpha Channel.  How does it work, what does it do, and how do I use it (in Gimp and NifSkope).  I realize this must sound noobish, but I have never found a good explanation of how this actually works.

#2 - How do the options on THIS SCREEN from NifSkope work?  All I've ever done with it is change the Emissive Color to White for Glow Maps

#3 - How do I change how "shiny" my Normal Map makes items look?  I understand it has something to do with the color of the NM or something, but I seek a better understanding (you guys are like the Tibetan monks sitting on top of mountains with long hair and beard [except the girls... I hope they don't have beards   {Ra's Al Ghul-ish?}]).

Anyway, this is the stuff I want to learn, so if someone could help me gain a better understanding of these things, I would be most grateful.  Thanks all ;-)

CC

[DaMage]

Well for #3

To change the shineyness ive found its how transperant the texture is, i tend to generate a normal map, then make it 80% transparent as then i get most of the detial, but no shineyness.

[WindmillTilter]

OK let's see.

1 The Alpha channel is an extra 8 bit greyscale channel that many image formats support. SInce it's greyscale it can store data from white to black and all the greys inbetween but no colour. Different game engines use the alpha channel for different things. In Oblivion the Alpha channel on your Difuse Map (Texture you see) controls the transparency. White areas are fully visible, black areas are invisible, and greys are translucent (the darker the grey the more you see throug it).

3. The Alpha channel in your Normal Map is used in Oblivion as a Specular Map (which controls how shiney the surface is). So for polished meetal portions you would use a very light grey (white is shiny), and for leather you'd use a dard grey. I have read that using pure white or black on your Specular Map gives the Oblivion engine issues, but I've never tested that.

2. Those control the material prperties that your textures are applied to. Changing the Ambient colour will make the material (and the applied texture) look like a light of that colour is shining on them. Emisive colour of course controls the glow colour of your model. Haven't played around with the other settings enough to be much help.

Let me know if my answers created more questions. (I get that a lot)

WT

[Running4Cover]

Quote

OK let's see.1 The Alpha channel is an extra 8 bit greyscale channel that many image formats support. SInce it's greyscale it can store data from white to black and all the greys inbetween but no colour. Different game engines use the alpha channel for different things. In Oblivion the Alpha channel on your Difuse Map (Texture you see) controls the transparency. White areas are fully visible, black areas are invisible, and greys are translucent (the darker the grey the more you see throug it).3. The Alpha channel in your Normal Map is used in Oblivion as a Specular Map (which controls how shiney the surface is). So for polished meetal portions you would use a very light grey (white is shiny), and for leather you'd use a dard grey. I have read that using pure white or black on your Specular Map gives the Oblivion engine issues, but I've never tested that.2. Those control the material prperties that your textures are applied to. Changing the Ambient colour will make the material (and the applied texture) look like a light of that colour is shining on them. Emisive colour of course controls the glow colour of your model. Haven't played around with the other settings enough to be much help.Let me know if my answers created more questions. (I get that a lot)WT

Okay, so yes, it raised a few questions, but I think I get the gyst of this.  Questions below :-P

1) In Gimp, how do I change the Alpha on a Difuse Map so as to make parts of it Black and the rest white (like holes)?  I'm not exactly sure how to go about changing the alpha

3) Again, how do I change this, and also, does this mean that the actual color/transoparency of the Normal Map doesn't effect it?  I know that I frequently past parts of one texture into another, and then, rather than making a new Normal Map, I just paste pieces of the other NM in too, so as to much.  When I do this, the parts of the differen't Normal Map are generally different color/transparency, and as a result the meshes wind up looking noticably different in-game because of this (often causing a desirable effect), for example, see THIS picture (notice the difference between the red and the black on the hood).  I didn;t knowingly change alpha, yet still there is an obvious difference.  This seems to sort of be in accordance with what DaMage said, so I wondered exactly why this was, and how it relates to Alpha.

2) ...I understand this one :-D

Than you SO much for the answers, and the fact that inspires more question just shows that you know more than me :-P   :-)  Thank you both for answering!

CC

EDIT:
Three more questions:

WHAT... is your name?                  Sir Galahad of Camelot!

WHAT... is your quest?                  To seek the Holy Grail!

WHAT... is your favorite color?      Blue!  No wait! I mean yellow!!!  No! NO!!!  AAAAHHHhhhhhh!!!......

[WindmillTilter]

Hmm can't actualy help you with the GIMP interface as I've never used it. In Photoshop the transparency of your various layers has no effect on the Alpha Channel, you click on the "Channels" tab and select the Alpha Channel (as opposed to R, G, or . I'm guessing from your results and and DaMages post that GIMP uses the Alpha Channel to control layer transparency aswell (would make sense). To be certain you could always Google +gimp +"alpha channel" and do some reading. Alternately there's a plugin available for GIMP that makes the UI very similar to Photoshop, then I could probably walk you through any problems.

So to clarify if I'm right about GIMP for the difuse just select the areas you transparent (or translucent) and set there transparency in GIMP and your done. I may have forgot to mention that for this to have any effect you need to add a NiAlphaProperty to the relevant NiTriStrips in Nifscope a value of 237 in the NiAlphPorperty should work for you.

For the normal Map the more tranparent you set the area the less shiney it will be ingame.

WT

[Vince]

To clarify WindmillTilter's response (WT, chim in if necessary), if you are only changing the alpha of the normal map to control shininess, you do not need to add a NiAlphaProperty block in NifScope.  Of course, if you have made part of your diffuse map transparent or translucent, then you do need to add a NiAlphaProperty block.  After you add the NiAlphaProperty block, click on the NiTriStrips block for that mesh.  In its Block Details, increase Num Properties by 1 (typically from 2 to 3).  Next, right click on Properties, then Array > Update.  Lastly, click on the '+' sign to the left of Properties to expand the list.  Change the last entry in the list from None to the line number of the NiAlphaProperty block you added.

I hope that made sense.  

[TheMagician]

Thanks for the info, everyone. I've been struggling with some of this stuff myself lately and I think you just answered a couple of my questions. The Alliance really needs to recruit a good texture prof!

I've been using this thread -> How to make textures thread on the beth forums. It has a lot of really good information, but a lot of it assumes familiarity with all of the stuff discussed in this thread. Excellent advice for advanced texturing, however. I've read through it a couple of times and learned a fair bit in the process.

I also recommend the GIMP user manual. It's kind of huge, but the information is presented very well. Just use the table of contents to find what you're looking for.

[Running4Cover]

Yes indeed, thank you all for the info!  I think I get it, and I will mess with everything posted here, and if I have any more questions, I'll ask here!  Again, thanks for being so helpful!

CC

[Running4Cover]

Okay, I was just retexturing a glass armor, and changed my Normal Map so that it was %90 transparent (except a few places where I wanted it to shine), and it made no difference (its still practically a mirror).  ...I;m not sure what to do now...

CC

[WindmillTilter]

Hmmm you want to post the texure somewhere, I'll have a look.

WT

[Running4Cover]

Quote

Hmmm you want to post the texure somewhere, I'll have a look.WT

Well, I can't find a filetype hat both supports transpareny AND is supported by imageshack/ohitibucket, but THIS is what I (sadly) used as the default Normal Map (I know it was cheap, but I came up with it for my first retexture release :-P).  Anyways, my version is %90 transparent everywhere except on the dark blue squiggly parts (scientific terminology) on the bottom half.  Before and after, it looked like THIS.  I'm not really sure why this is, so help would be appreciated :-D  Thanks (and I feel inclined to note, I am NOT releasing that armor)

CC

EDIT:
I started making a new Normal Map from scratch, and wasn't sure how THESE OPTIONS might affect it..?

EDIT2:
...Is it possible that this is a property of Glass Armor?  This problem does not seem to be occuring with daedric... also, if it is from Glass Armor, how would I fix it?  Thanks!

[Vince]

Change the Apply Mode in the Block Details of the NiTexturingProperty block from APPLY_HIGHLIGHT to APPLY_MODULATE.

[Running4Cover]

Quote

Change the Apply Mode in the Block Details of the NiTexturingProperty block from APPLY_HIGHLIGHT to APPLY_MODULATE.

Err... is that something in here:

[Vince]

This information is in the Block Details of the NiTexturingProperty block.  You need to setup NifScope to show the Block Details.  Click on View and tick Block Details.

[Running4Cover]

Quote

This information is in the Block Details of the NiTexturingProperty block.  You need to setup NifScope to show the Block Details.  Click on View and tick Block Details.

THANKYOU!  That totally worked!  (I should have warned you to use small words when talking to me about NifSkope :-P)  It totally looks sweet now :-D  Thanks ;-)

CC

[Running4Cover]

Okay, a new, completely new, problem has occured for me :-D  This is most likely the result of some newbish lack of knowledge, but I can't figure out what's wrong.  Anyway, I was just messing around with my (new!!!) camera and nifSkope, and came up with this basic texture:

...anyways, I thought it looked cool-ish, and wanted to see how it looked on a model before i went about creating a real retex using it.  I saved it as a DDS, opened up a random mesh in NifSkope (first I think it was the Ebony Male Cuirass), and selected this as the texture like I always would do, but nothing happened, at all!  The file was listed as the texture, but the cuirass was still just white.  Anyways, I tried loading up multiple models, restarting nifskope, and even resaving/naming the texture to a different folder, but it still didn't work.  I even tried letting it generate MipMaps and not letting it generate them (even though I have no idea what that does :-P).  So anyway, if anyone has any idea why this would be working, please tell me!  Thanks!

CC

EDIT:

Okay, I just tried opening a Vanilla texture, pasting this over it, and saving as a new file, and now it works, but the old files still don't... I assumet his means I didn't create some necassary "thing" in the file or whatever that lets it be read by NifSkope, but I would LOVE an explanation :-D  Thx!

P.S.  Also... what do MipMaps do?  Thx :-D

[WindmillTilter]

Where did you have the first dds file you made saved? It has to be inside of DataTextures in your game directory or it won't work.

Could also have been a size issue, you're texture dimensions have to be a power of 2 (512x512, 512x1024, etc.)

WT

[Running4Cover]

Actually, this was still in nifSkope, so it didn't have to be in data>textures.  I keep all textures I work on in a folder under my user (i.e. parallel to "My Pictures" and docs and stuff).  Anyways, both the on that worked and one of the ones that didn't were in the same place :-P  Concerning size, they were both 1024x1024... weeeiiirrd :-P

Thanks for your tips/comments :-D

CC