Black Warpaint?

[Jormungandr]

Yup. black.

 

Darkest color i can get in the racemenu is dark brown, i'm using expireds racemenu btw, setting the color sliders to black ..makes it brown

 

Any ideas?

[gvman3670]

Can't you click on the color to get a custom color option, like in ECE? If so then you could just set it wherever you want it, including pure black of the blackest variety.

[Jormungandr]

Like i said in the opening post, using the slider to get black, gives me brown.

 

 

Or to be precise an earthen tone.. that's in any way NOT black.

 

 

 

 

[gvman3670]

That's just weird. It should be blacker than black at those settings. Could it be the light? When you get out of character creation is it black then?

[HeavyDude]

Some warpaint textures have a transparent effect.

 

The warpaint textures are essentially texture masks in grayscale. The white part being the one that's visible and the black one being transparent. Some textures don't use pure white for the visible part but rather use very bright gray, hence them being a little bit translucent.

 

On top of that, the normals are applied on top of the warpaint textures making them in some cases looking brighter that they are/should be.

 

Basically it's a lighting problem. If you add ENB into the mix, it all goes to hell.

[Guest Ragna_Rok]

Some warpaint textures have a transparent effect.

 

The warpaint textures are essentially texture masks in grayscale. The white part being the one that's visible and the black one being transparent. Some textures don't use pure white for the visible part but rather use very bright gray, hence them being a little bit translucent.

 

On top of that, the normals are applied on top of the warpaint textures making them in some cases looking brighter that they are/should be.

 

Basically it's a lighting problem. If you add ENB into the mix, it all goes to hell.

 

did you think about making some tutorials or stuff? i mean jeez, you surely know your business

[Jormungandr]

Some warpaint textures have a transparent effect.

 

The warpaint textures are essentially texture masks in grayscale. The white part being the one that's visible and the black one being transparent. Some textures don't use pure white for the visible part but rather use very bright gray, hence them being a little bit translucent.

 

On top of that, the normals are applied on top of the warpaint textures making them in some cases looking brighter that they are/should be.

 

Basically it's a lighting problem. If you add ENB into the mix, it all goes to hell.

 

So, i guess it highly depends on the ENB then ? 

 

Guess i'll tinker a bit with my ENB then. Thanks HeavyDude.

[HeavyDude]

 

 

 

Some warpaint textures have a transparent effect.

 

The warpaint textures are essentially texture masks in grayscale. The white part being the one that's visible and the black one being transparent. Some textures don't use pure white for the visible part but rather use very bright gray, hence them being a little bit translucent.

 

On top of that, the normals are applied on top of the warpaint textures making them in some cases looking brighter that they are/should be.

 

Basically it's a lighting problem. If you add ENB into the mix, it all goes to hell.

 

did you think about making some tutorials or stuff? i mean jeez, you surely know your business

 

 

 

 

I've been thinking about making some warpaints myself. The textures aren't the problem, it's the .esp. There's a tool on nexus to make the plugin for RaceMenu automagically, so I guess there's nothing in my way now.

 

I'll make some, upload here and on the nexus (maybe). If there's enough feedback, I'll make some more, tutorials included.

[Terakhan]

It has to do with the base texture too. I made myself a paler body texture replacer, and all of the warpaints and overlays I used with it were more washed out.

[Jormungandr]

This is driving me nuts, touching the texture results in nothing for me, no matter what i do. I eved tried to make it all white in the texture, it still went brown ingame. Wtf is this? IS this solely ENB related? I know i said i'll tinker with my ENB but on the second thought i didn't because i have no freakin idea what setting would even be near influencing emissive colors, if warpaints are even relating to that.

 

I've also read it could be the normal map, someone out there with black warpaints who'd be willing to give hint which normal map he's using? i'd try that then before blowing my computer up with my ENB.

[Guest corespore]

Which warpaint pack are you using? If i can get my hands on a copy i will be willing to crack it open and try to Gimp a custom normal map for what ever warpaint your using. I'm starting to understand how textures in Skyrim work and i think i might be able to do something useful here, i can't promise it will work but i can give it an honest try.  

[Jormungandr]

That'd be mighty kind if you could get behind how that works. Good luck with that.

 

I'm using primarily this one here; http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/40831/?

 

The Female Warpaints RaceMenu Plugin

 

Don't get me wrong, i'm not expecting you to do that with all 80 warpaints. Except you're bored enough for it.

 

IF you get the hang of it, some advice would be enough.

[HeavyDude]

Try moving the ENB .dll out of your Skyrim folder to the desktop for a second, and launch Skyrim without it, OR just toggle ENB off in-game and see if the warpaint textures are still brown without ENB. That should give you an idea if its the problem with ENB or the textures themselves.

[Jormungandr]

I just tried that. Don't mind the makeup at the female, that's my crappy custom tintmap, not related to warpaints.

 

Without ENB 

 

 

 

With ENB

 

 

 

With ENB and Face lit up

 

 

 

Not pitch black. Still Brown-Grey-something.

 

The funny thing is that my ENB already makes the game darker as it is, but warpaints get.. well... poop.

 

I thought it might be the warpaints opacity setting to make it looks more real, but thats balls, the vanilla crap ones are brown as well. Also the difference between the tintmap at the female and the warpaint shows it perfectly.

[Guest corespore]

Alright, so i opened up the .bsa and generated normal maps for several of the largest paints i could find. The normals i tried were made with only 1% opacity (the lowest possible). Your were right about the dookie brown color i didn't even notice that until you  said something, but i never use face paints, i just use body paints with glow-maps only. Anyways i use normal lighting with ELFX mods and i couldn't tell the difference between the paints that had no normals (there were no normals in the first place) and the ones i added normals to. So i think whatever is causing your brown paints isn't your ENB or lack of normals, which means i'm at a complete loss.

EDIT: so just for shits and giggles i tried making a Normal map that tooked the exact opposite of the effect we were looking for and except for making the paint look more chunky and slightly more glossy there was no difference in color.

 

 

 

 

[Jormungandr]

This is just a very stupid idea, but what would happen with a Black Glowmap ?

[Guest corespore]

This is just a very stupid idea, but what would happen with a Black Glowmap ?

Face paints don't have glowmaps, it's the reason i don't use them. Im not sure if it's a property of the game or just Racemenu but they aren't available. 

[Jormungandr]

 

This is just a very stupid idea, but what would happen with a Black Glowmap ?

Face paints don't have glowmaps, it's the reason i don't use them. Im not sure if it's a property of the game or just Racemenu but they aren't available. 

 

 

I learned making glowmaps with this: http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/tutorials/article/91-graphic-artistry-glow-maps/ a while back, i'd wager that would work with the head mesh as well. I think i'll try that but this could have unexpected results i think.

 

Infact, i'll just try something in nifskope.

 

Edit: Er.. nevermind that idea.. that just turned the face black, skin gloss.. but black. lmao.

 

I'm no pro at texturing so i'm running into the same wall as you most likely. I can only guess. And my next guess would be something with the texture directly, like this DXT stuff .. i have no idea what i'm talking about here.

 

Edit the 2nd: You know what just came to my mind? All the screenshots i see of people using pitch black warpaints... those are custom races.. that means they have their own textures and/or texturepaths, which means those aren't warpaints.. those are freakin tintmasks! Just like i did with that tintmask on my character.  But she's a nord so.. unless i find a way to make a ..tintmask-pc-exclusive-mod .. i'm pretty much screwed with default races lol..

 

Edit the 3rd: Exclusive Paths require custom races anyway. at least from what i see on the nexus. Damn.

[HeavyDude]

Yeah, the solutions i came up with would require an exclusive PC path. So if you don't want to go that route, I got nothing. Bummer 

[Jormungandr]

Yeah, the solutions i came up with would require an exclusive PC path. So if you don't want to go that route, I got nothing. Bummer 

 

It's not that i wouldn't mind an exclusive path, the problem is more that my primary character is a nord and exclusive paths apparently don't work with vanilla races.

 

I could copy the nord race of course, but then again i'd need to adjust all scripts in the game which got a race check in them, that would also include mod scripts and that's where shit really hits the fan.

 

Still this is somewhat weird, i mean there must be a way to get black warpaints without all that hassle or not? I also tried different texture compressions to no avail.

 

Really this is crazy. I always thought textures were the minor part in modding.

[HeavyDude]

Have you actually seen a screen with ENB enabled that had pitch black warpaints?

 

EDIT: Shocky has them (or comes close), but he uses a custom race if I understand correctly. And if you think about it, normal maps get applied on top of any diffuse texture, and unless the normal map is completely transparent it is going to reflect light. So no pitch black warpaints unless you're using a normal map that complements it (i.e. is completely transparent in the places you have the warpaint).

[Guest corespore]

Have you actually seen a screen with ENB enabled that had pitch black warpaints?

 

EDIT: Shocky has them (or comes close), but he uses a custom race if I understand correctly. And if you think about it, normal maps get applied on top of any diffuse texture, and unless the normal map is completely transparent it is going to reflect light. So no pitch black warpaints unless you're using a normal map that complements it (i.e. is completely transparent in the places you have the warpaint).

I can confirm that, i tried some wacky things trying to see some difference with and without normals maps applied and i had to push the normals to the extreme and even then i could barely see anything. Whatever is causing the warpaints to look brown can't be normals since all the facepaints i have opened up (5 separate in total) don't even have normal maps, and their lack of effectiveness in doing anything would explain that. I'm starting to wonder if the color palette of the skin itself isn't to blame. Perhaps being applied to human colored skin lightens up the colors of the tattoo, afterall, they are an extremely thin layer of texture being applied to a semi-white surface. It could be that the tatts are black but the application of them on a skin surface brightens them up, and if that is the case there simply might not be anything that can be done besides changing the skin tone. would it be possible to to pull up the player characters face data on say photoshop for example and pre-apply the tattoos or perhaps darken the skin tone where they are going to be applied, i have no experience with character modding so i'm not sure if thats possible.   

[Jormungandr]

 

Have you actually seen a screen with ENB enabled that had pitch black warpaints?

 

EDIT: Shocky has them (or comes close), but he uses a custom race if I understand correctly. And if you think about it, normal maps get applied on top of any diffuse texture, and unless the normal map is completely transparent it is going to reflect light. So no pitch black warpaints unless you're using a normal map that complements it (i.e. is completely transparent in the places you have the warpaint).

I can confirm that, i tried some wacky things trying to see some difference with and without normals maps applied and i had to push the normals to the extreme and even then i could barely see anything. Whatever is causing the warpaints to look brown can't be normals since all the facepaints i have opened up (5 separate in total) don't even have normal maps, and their lack of effectiveness in doing anything would explain that. I'm starting to wonder if the color palette of the skin itself isn't to blame. Perhaps being applied to human colored skin lightens up the colors of the tattoo, afterall, they are an extremely thin layer of texture being applied to a semi-white surface. It could be that the tatts are black but the application of them on a skin surface brightens them up, and if that is the case there simply might not be anything that can be done besides changing the skin tone. would it be possible to to pull up the player characters face data on say photoshop for example and pre-apply the tattoos or perhaps darken the skin tone where they are going to be applied, i have no experience with character modding so i'm not sure if thats possible.   

 

 

Yup but Shocky noted these textures are his own and frankly i don't want to bother him on that. And like you said it's a custom race he's using, afaik that's the temptress race and i think it's a tintmask after all.  The complementing normal map sounds like it'll work, although i'd have to chew through one or two tutorials for that i think.

 

Darkening the skin tone does actually nothing on that (on my rig at least) and also, funny that you mention skin tones, even that won't go to black for me, but brown

 

 

I could make a long shot and download some custom races though and rip them apart to see if i find something.

[Guest corespore]

i STILL can't fathom how it is that i never noticed any of this until you mentioned it. You would think after nearly a thousand hours of gameplay something like brown tinted facepaint would have not gone by unnoticed, i must be getting slow im my old age.  

[HeavyDude]

Let me clarify the normal map issue.

 

When you get a body texture (e.g. SG ) you get diffuse maps (the skin color), these can have an alpha channel that defines their transparency/translucency; and normal maps (sometimes some other "maps" as well) with alphas as well. Warpaints come as tint masks, they are grayscale and have no alpha channel, their transparency/translucency is defined by black; i.e. the darker the color the more transparent it is (pure white = opaque, pure black = completely transparent)

 

Then, as i explain it, those are applied to the mesh in layers if you will. Diffuse goes first (with its own alphas) then the warpaints get applied (tint masks) and on top of them are normal maps applied. The problem arises with normals, they add reflection if their alpha is anything other 100%. Pitch black = no reflection, a matte black.

 

I think it would be a simple experiment to prove/disprove what i said. Take your face normals, back them up (make a copy in the same folder and rename it), modify the original one and give it 100% transparency, save it. Run Skyrim, toggle ENB off, make your warpaint black. Is it pitch black? If not, I'm wrong, if it is, then I'm right. Simple as that. After you're done restore your backed up texture.