I learned to get my textures proper and looking good in Oblivion, but it's been a while. I've retraced my steps for mods I'm working on for Skyrim, but they always come out shiny in the game.

I've tried all kinds of settings for the Normal's, but it's still shiny. I've messed with the Alpha channel and nothing has changed; even tried to make it Specular a.k.a. darker, lighter, nothing.

As far as non-Normal textures, it seems the Alpha channel in the Regular texture requires the color White in order for the texture to appear in-game, because it's invisible when it's darker. It confused me because I examined another texture from another mod and it's Regular texture barely had any White in its Alpha channel, but would appear in-game.

As far as Normal's go, I hear I need to place a Specular in its Alpha channel? Do I add another Alpha channel or replace?


Please help. This is making me very tired.

Shiny textures usually mean a white alpha channel on the normal map. If you don't want them shiny, your best option is to save the normal map as DXT1, which eliminates the alpha channel all together (and also decreases file size). The alpha channel on the regular texture controls transparency. If you have no transparency on your model, there's no need to have an alpha channel, and you can once again save as DXT1.

Or that's how it was for Oblivion, at any rate. Your problems could also be caused by something on the mesh rather than the texture.

Can always darken the alpha to a more grayish color too on the normal map if you need it to be shiny but not ultra bright.

Ah, yes. I did save it as DXT1 - 1 bit alpha. I save my regular textures DX5 for best quality. Perhaps I could flatten image and eliminate the Alpha?

I should check on those meshes, hehe. Genius!

I even made them black and it's still the same shiny.

I think I should check the meshes, but it's left unchanged.


Okay, I'm retexturing the bears. The Vanilla bears aren't shiny, so I didn't think the meshes had anything to do with it, which is why I've focused on just the textures (mesh's path to textures are left unchanged and texture's directory/name themselves are left unchanged).

Hmm as far as i have seen, the Texture Map has an Alpha Channel while the Normal Map has none. I save Texture maps as DXT3 and export the 5 Channels and at Normal Maps 4 Channels. If you are using Photoshop you can also export Normal Maps as (8.8.8.8 ARGB 32 bbp) Goes a lot faster as DXT5.

DXT5 doesn't have better quality than DXT1, saving as DXT5 if you need no alpha channel will only do one thing - it will double the file size without any benefit. So don't do that.

DXT1 - 1bit alpha is the wrong format. It will save the alpha channel with only full black or full white pixels, which means no shine whatsoever or more reflective than a polished mirror. If you don't want any specular highlights save as DXT1 - no alpha. Otherwise save as DXT5.

EDIT: @JazzJR: Diffuse texture have an alpha channel if it is needed for transparency effects. Normal maps have an alpha channel if it is needed for specular highlights. Saving texture maps as DXT3 is a waste if there is no transparency needed. Generally DXT3 is a format that makes no sense, at least none I could see yet. The file size is the same as DXT5, but the alpha channel looks like crap.
And finally exporting as 8.8.8.8 is not a good idea unless you really know why you're doing it. It's completely uncompressed and has a huge file size.

ahh, does sound like a mesh thing then unless something else is doing it. Shiny bears Enough to get a giggle out of at least

also if you are using photoshop to create dds files from scratch save the dds then reopen and then overwrite it. some reason the initial save seems to throw the colors out of whack (even though when you open the file the colors look fine).

I see what you are saying. I'll do this. Thank you.

Doesn't DXT5 handle retaining all of the data much better? I've never used for Oblivion, but this is the first I'm using it. Also, I thought 1-bit alpha just meant it will include the alpha. I should go back to Oblivion methods! I could have sworn last night when I was testing methods out, that certain formats would reset the Alpha you edit when you reopen them. I didn't understand that.

Guess which creature is next!

I definitely see this.


I'll be trying things out. Thanks, everyone!

I'll bump this later. Don't go too far away!

DXT5 has the same quality as DXT1 in the RGB channel, but it also saves a high quality alpha channel. That's the only difference. If you don't need an alpha channel you don't need DXT5. 1-bit alpha indeed includes the alpha, but like the name suggests it only includes 1-bit alpha. Which means either completely black or completely white. Pretty useless in most cases.

EDIT: For diffuse maps DXT1 or 5 (when transparency information is needed) are sufficient. You will not see a difference in game between a texture saved as DXT1 or 8.8.8(8) (A)RGB (uncompressed). At least not unless you look for differences with a magnifying glass. For normal maps it's a bit different. Maybe you know the quite popular 'No more blocky faces' mod. The reason why those blocky faces existed in the vanilla game is that Beth saves their normal maps in DXT format no matter what. This can create ugly artifacts in normal maps sometimes. So in some cases it's better to downsize the normal map and save uncompressed or, if you don't care about file size, simply save the full size normal map uncompressed. Whether this is needed or not depends on the normal map though, not all normal maps will have the same amount of artifacts when saved as DXT.

EDIT2: Oh, and I'm a youthful orang-utan, not a youthful chimp.

You know, for a youthful chimp you're quite knowledgeable in these matters.

http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/dds_types.html

That covers DDS formats pretty well. Maybe it will be helpful.

saved for near future reference. Thanks!

I found that decresing the blue channel′s levels SLIGHTLY (if you decrease it too much you will invalidate it all together), decreases "shinning". The best way to "control" and limit the normal maps shinny surfaces is to produce a good specular map and dump it into the alpha channel. That together with the occlusion one should produce very good results. You can actually test this with a 30day evaluation program called Crazy bump since it produces all maps and I found it very usefull to start producing my own maps from scratch. My 2 cents

Oddly enough, whenever I try to create my own normal maps they're also very shiny. Even when I used DXT1 format .dds to save them. Even when I reduce the blue colour percentage.

Here is a Normal Map that I am having trouble with. It has no alpha channel , but appears in-game very shiny.
https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=6775c1d2217eb000&resid=6775C1D2217EB000!1813&parid=6775C1D2217EB000!119

I keep hearing about dumping specular map in the Alpha channel.

Can you fill me in on the process? Do I add an Alpha 2 ? Page an original in Alpha 1 ? Not sure what to do.

Specular map is the File with the "_s.dss" ending irc. It is just in greyscales white is glowing and black is not glowing.

First get that 30day trial program to help you and you will have a perfect (or at least an easy starting way to tweak the specular). Dump all maps for your diffuse texture and open the normal, create a 5th channel (alpha1) and copy and paste the specular into it. This will control how shinny the surfaces will be for the normal map.

The map is fine but its also missing its specular.

http://www.multiupload.com/RKV0267UMR

How do I give it a specular that isn't shiny?

Vanilla normal map files do not have alpha channels except all white. If I save this with an all-white alpha channel it becomes very shiny, if I save it without an alpha map it is still very shiny. How do I make it not very shiny?

I edited my above post to add a link to the same normal you had but with a specular map, try it and see if it makes a difference.

Edit: Most normals have a specular. I am not sure if you are checking that properly. Most weapons do at least.

It isn't shiny. What did you do?

Here is an http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b74/Desert-Rat/Skyrim%20Mods/Texture.jpghow it could look like Save it as DXT5 with Alpha Channel or as 8.8.8.8 32bpp if you doesn't want to compress it.

Edit:
If you don't want the Sword shiny make everything almost black in the Alpha Channel.