Strangely, the most difficult thing I've encountered when getting new objects into the game is trying to control how shiny it is. Seems like I have to fiddle with a half-dozen settings in order to get an object to not look like it is made out of wet plastic. Which leads to the reason why I created this thread:

What methods have you used to make sure something isn't too shiny? Where you get to keep the bump but not have Skyrim's sunlight blind the player from the 'raised' parts.


There has to be an easier method than what I've been having to do, which is basically fiddling with both a .nif's BSLightingShaderProperty and the attached normal map for awhile, until Skyrim suddenly decides to like it.

The shine is determined by the color of the Alpha channel of the _n.dds texture (black is no shine - white full shine ) so make sure that you are correctly creating the normal map alpha channel and that you are saving it in a format that saves the full alpha channel (dxt5 or dxt3) - if you want to make the item shine less just darken the alpha channel of the normal map.

I have been saving it in dxt5 and so on. This is the kind of glare I am talking about: http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd141/SachioD/ScreenShot239.jpg

you need a proper specular map in your alpha channel

What would you consider to be proper?

For that ground texture, the alpha channel is just a very simple, solid black. Just like base game ground textures.

Come to think of it, certain game textures are unusually shiny as well. Like that reach mountain moss.

In case anyone else has similar issues: The program CrazyBump allows a great deal more control over object maps than the plugins for Photoshop or Gimp. Using CB instead solved the problem I was having.

I guess your graphics program didn't save the 100% black alpha channel - I didn't know about that problem either, but with the Nvidia plugin that happens. Completely black alpha channels simply get removed when you save.

Crazybump is a nice program for sure, but it can't make an alpha channel blacker than black.