Unable to get cubemap/specular working on a particular mesh.

[SmedleyDButler]

I have a pair of boots from a Witcher 3 set which I wish to incorporate with part of a Witcher 2 set to make some simple armour. The boots have an excellent metallic reflection, which I wished to duplicate as best I could in the steel plate of the armour. So I copied the cubemap and all of the settings from the boots over to the armour set. I also created the appropriate mask so that only the metal areas in question would be properly reflected.

 

As far as I know I have done everything necessary - fixed the BSLightingShaderProperty to match the boots, added a cubemap mask to the armour, etc.

 

Unfortunately the metal areas of the armour simply do not reflect the way the metal on the boots does and I have no idea why. Can anyone help? Here's the current in-progress sample:

 

By the way, don't mind the clipping. I'll sort that all out once I can get this lighting issue solved.

 

Any ideas what I'm missing?

 

 

Steeltest.zip

[27X]

assuming the em_ path is correct and no mispellings and the cubemap itself is in the correct format and pathed accordingly?

[Andy14]

Wrong file path for cubemap in cuirass.
File path must be relative to data.

 

change this:
tw3_armor \ pendant \ metal_cubemap.dds

 

to this:
textures \ tw3_armor \ pendant \ metal_cubemap.dds

[SmedleyDButler]

Oh shoot, I didn't see the front had been cut off. I did check file paths, but was looking more at end folders and filenames.

 

@27X: I was using the existing cubemap from the boots, so I knew format shouldn't be a problem. 

 

HOWEVER. I fixed the pathway and still see no reflection. Looking at the existing cubemap, I see it's only a small square. Yet I know it works on the existing set of boots another armours from the Witcher 3 set I obtained it from.

 

So now I don't even know if the issue is that this cubemap doesn't work with the old Witcher 2 .nif (I don't see why not, given I *think* I've copied all the settings from the boots mesh and also, in looking through my cubemaps, there are other mods which also use that same cubemap), if I somehow messed up in creating the reflective mask .dds, or if there's a reason the armour part of the boots are made to work with such a minimal cubemap that I've missed.

 

I did a test by using a different, more conventional cubemap from the vanilla game and that didin't make the armour reflective. I feel like there must be some error with my mask. I can see a slight sheen in the masked areas, so I know it's positioned properly. When I created the mask, I made a black-and-white version of the base texture and then blackened all the non-reflective areas and played with the reflective ones to get values I thought would work well. Perhaps I screwed up the .dds formatting somehow in this process?

[Andy14]

2 hours ago, SmedleyDButler said:

Oh shoot, I didn't see the front had been cut off. I did check file paths, but was looking more at end folders and filenames.

 

@27X: I was using the existing cubemap from the boots, so I knew format shouldn't be a problem. 

 

HOWEVER. I fixed the pathway and still see no reflection. Looking at the existing cubemap, I see it's only a small square. Yet I know it works on the existing set of boots another armours from the Witcher 3 set I obtained it from.

 

So now I don't even know if the issue is that this cubemap doesn't work with the old Witcher 2 .nif (I don't see why not, given I *think* I've copied all the settings from the boots mesh and also, in looking through my cubemaps, there are other mods which also use that same cubemap), if I somehow messed up in creating the reflective mask .dds, or if there's a reason the armour part of the boots are made to work with such a minimal cubemap that I've missed.

 

I did a test by using a different, more conventional cubemap from the vanilla game and that didin't make the armour reflective. I feel like there must be some error with my mask. I can see a slight sheen in the masked areas, so I know it's positioned properly. When I created the mask, I made a black-and-white version of the base texture and then blackened all the non-reflective areas and played with the reflective ones to get values I thought would work well. Perhaps I screwed up the .dds formatting somehow in this process?

Specular maps differ in 2 points from diffuse, normal, etc.
1. There is no alpha channel (so BTX5 would not be recommended)
2. No MipMap is used

Basically, it would be advisable to compare the normals of the two meshes.
Because the base value for glossines / specular results from the alpha of the normal map.
No alpha = 100% glossiness / specular (depending on the setting of the shader in the nif)

[SmedleyDButler]

Well, my specular map did have mipmaps, but I completely remade the image from scratch and saved it without mimaps and that didn't change anything. It never had an alpha layer, so that wasn't the issue.

 

So, with regards to the alpha channel of the normal maps, I looked at the normal map of the armour and it didn't have one. So, thinking that was the issue, I opened the normal map for the boots to get a sense of how the alpha channel looked there, but the normal map for the boots has no alpha channel either! And isn't the black-and-white specular map what determines glossiness anyway? I've never seen alpha-channel normals mentioned before in this way - all the tutorials I've ever read talk about a separate specular map.

 

I know it's not alpha channel on the difference maps, because that controls transparency. So I'm not sure what you're referring to? I've looked at all three of the textures used in the boots and not one of them has an alpha channel, yet they do have the reflective property.

 

I also tried brightening the specular map, in case it was simply a case of mine being too dull, but that made no difference at all. I'm really stumped here.

[Andy14]

18 minutes ago, SmedleyDButler said:

Well, my specular map did have mipmaps, but I completely remade the image from scratch and saved it without mimaps and that didn't change anything. It never had an alpha layer, so that wasn't the issue.

 

So, with regards to the alpha channel of the normal maps, I looked at the normal map of the armour and it didn't have one. So, thinking that was the issue, I opened the normal map for the boots to get a sense of how the alpha channel looked there, but the normal map for the boots has no alpha channel either! And isn't the black-and-white specular map what determines glossiness anyway? I've never seen alpha-channel normals mentioned before in this way - all the tutorials I've ever read talk about a separate specular map.

 

I know it's not alpha channel on the difference maps, because that controls transparency. So I'm not sure what you're referring to? I've looked at all three of the textures used in the boots and not one of them has an alpha channel, yet they do have the reflective property.

 

I also tried brightening the specular map, in case it was simply a case of mine being too dull, but that made no difference at all. I'm really stumped here.

I'll take another look at your mesh and textures. But now 04:00 AM and I'm tired - I'll contact you.

[SmedleyDButler]

Just now, Andy14 said:

I'll take another look at your mesh and textures. But now 04:00 AM and I'm tired - I'll contact you.

Oh no worries, no hurry - I certainly don't need it right now, today. Thanks for your help!

[Andy14]

7 hours ago, SmedleyDButler said:

Oh no worries, no hurry - I certainly don't need it right now, today. Thanks for your help!

 

Here is the correction of the cuirass mesh. fix.7z

In addition, I have created a new specular map because the leather and the fabric was a bit too shiny. You can change it if necessary.
Note: Specular maps in Skyrim (Oldrim) are black / white.

 

I added an extra mesh and used the vanilla chrome cubemap (is included) because the witcher 3 cubemap looks very strange in the CK.

 

 

[SmedleyDButler]

9 hours ago, Andy14 said:

 

Here is the correction of the cuirass mesh. fix.7z

In addition, I have created a new specular map because the leather and the fabric was a bit too shiny. You can change it if necessary.
Note: Specular maps in Skyrim (Oldrim) are black / white.

 

I added an extra mesh and used the vanilla chrome cubemap (is included) because the witcher 3 cubemap looks very strange in the CK.

 

 

Well! That works! A little tweaking and it will be perfect. Thanks loads!

 

If you don't mind though, what's the difference between your specular map, mine, and the one which comes with the bear boots?

 

From what i can tell so far, what you did was create a slightly different specular map (and of course edit the pathways in the nif)? I'd like to be able to understand what I did wrong so that when I'm reworking a specular map in future I won't end up doing the same makes (whatever that was) again. The image is smaller of course, but it still seems to be a 3-channel RGB black and white .dds with no alpha, similarly to mine? I didn't see any other setting changes in the .nif (the shaderset number was changed but I wouldn't think that would affect anything?). So this is still a mystery to me!

 

I use photoshop and it can be oddly buggy sometimes with the NVidia plugin, with strange sensitivity to certain actions (for example, if you open a .dds through the file menu, it's fine, but if you drag it into the open photoshop window from a folder you have open, it somehow breaks the .dds permanently). When I converted to black and white, I changed the image mode to B&W and then changed it back after discarding the colour information. I'm wondering if that screwed things up somehow and if you simply reduced saturation to 0 instead?

[SmedleyDButler]

Update: The mode change must be what caused the problem. I created a new specular map from scratch as a test, making sure to only use conventional paint/selection tools and THIS TIME it worked just fine.

 

Goddamn, is the Photoshop NVidia plugin ever sensitive to nonsense.

 

Thanks again for all your help.