Hoping someone can help me with a texturing problem

[Jehuty599]

I need some help, I'm trying to make a custom body texture for my Khajiit character. I'm trying to use Calientes CBBEv3 textures and Photoshop CS6 to combine the bare female chest and stomach area with the Khajiit body...like in the screen shot below. I'm a total noob at this, this is my first time trying to texture anything, so I'm kind of clueless as to what I'm doing wrong. I tried googling for some tutorial video's, but haven't had much luck with finding a solution to my particular issue.

 

My problem is when I install my modded femalebody.dds to my character, the fur lines show through to the body texture, even though I cut that part out of the Khajiit texture in Photoshop. Is there another file I have to edit like the femalebody_msn.dds, or femalebody_s.dds ?

 

If it's a mesh thing, what free program should I use that is beginner friendly? Any help anyone can give me, or if anyone knows of some tutorials, I will greatly appreciate it, thanks for your time .

 

 

 

 

PS. I would like to keep the fur lines on the fury parts of the body, I just want them removed from the breast and stomach area. The above pictures are just a rough example.

[tattooedillusions]

That is just a normal map thing (the _msn.dds). I'm not sure about the _s.dds or the _sk.dds but it's definitely the _msn.dds. Open up both the Khajiit body _msn.dds file and the CBBE body _msn.dds file and just do the exact same thing to that as you did to the textures. The normal maps are what gives the textures "definition". Like I said I'm not sure if you'll have to do the same to the others or not but start out with the normal map and go from there.

[Jehuty599]

That is just a normal map thing (the _msn.dds). I'm not sure about the _s.dds or the _sk.dds but it's definitely the _msn.dds. Open up both the Khajiit body _msn.dds file and the CBBE body _msn.dds file and just do the exact same thing to that as you did to the textures. The normal maps are what gives the textures "definition". Like I said I'm not sure if you'll have to do the same to the others or not but start out with the normal map and go from there.

 

OK, I just gave what you suggested a try, I made all the same alterations to all of the files Khajiit, femalebody.dds,femalebody_msn.dds, and femalebody_s.dds and it worked .

 

"THANK YOU" so much for helping me out, now I can get to work with the fine tuning, and blending.

[tattooedillusions]

No problem at all glad to help with what little knowledge of this stuff that I do know or think I know. Best of luck with it. Cheers!

[Jehuty599]

I have one more question I'm hoping someone can help me out with. I'm using Photoshop and Nvidia's DDS converter for editing the different .dds files ( Khajiit, femalebody.dds,femalebody_msn.dds, and femalebody_s.dds ). When I'm in-game I noticed that my modded skin texture has some pixelation, and the files sizes are smaller than the originals I started out with. So I think I'm losing some of the quality, I have been saving them as...

 

DXT5...........ARGB....8 bpp / interpolated alpha

 

 

 

 

After I select "save as" in Photoshop, the Nvidia converter pops up and I have 29 different options to save the .DDS file as listed below...

 

 

DXT1...........RGB.....4 bpp / no alpha

DXT1...........ARGB....4 bpp / 1 bit alpha

DXT3...........ARGB....8 bpp / explicit alpha

DXT5...........ARGB....8 bpp / interpolated alpha

DXT5_NM........XY......8 bpp / using DXT5

3Dc............XY......8 bpp / Normal Map

palette........RGB.....4 bpp / 16 colors

palette........RGB.....8 bpp / 256 colors

palette........ARGB....4 bpp / 16 colors + alpha

palette........ARGB....8 bpp / 256 colors + alpha

8..............A.......8 bpp / alpha

8..............L.......8 bpp / luminance

8.8............AL.....16 bpp / alpha/luminance

8.8............VU.....16 bpp / signed

8.8............CxVU...16 bpp / signed

8.8.8.8........QWVU...32 bpp / signed

16.16..........VU.....32 bpp / signed

5.5.5..........RGB....16 bpp / unsigned

5.6.5..........RGB....16 bpp / unsigned

1.5.5.5........ARGB...16 bpp / unsigned

4.4.4.4........ARGB...16 bpp / unsigned

8.8.8..........RGB....16 bpp / unsigned

8.8.8.8........ARGB...32 bpp / unsigned

X.8.8.8........XRGB...32 bpp / unsigned

16.16..........GB.....32 bpp / unsigned

16f............R......16 bpp / floating point

16.16.16.16f...ABGR...64 bpp / floating point

32f............R......32 bpp / floating point

32.32.32.32f...ABGR..128 bpp / floating point

 

My question is which one of these options can I use to save the .DDS files as, that will give me the great looking textures in-game without the pixelation?

[Vioxsis]

Save the femalebody_msn.dds as

 

8.8.8.8........ARGB...32 bpp / unsigned

 

and the rest can be saved as

 

DXT5...........ARGB....8 bpp / interpolated alpha

[Jehuty599]

Save the femalebody_msn.dds as

 

8.8.8.8........ARGB...32 bpp / unsigned

 

and the rest can be saved as

 

DXT5...........ARGB....8 bpp / interpolated alpha

 

Thank you Vioxsis, that fixed it , it would have taken me forever to figure that out, so many options...LOL.