I need idiot level advice on removing 'shine' from armor

[Shor]

I took some armor that was from a replacer set and converted one armor to be standalone.  It was the meshes from this armor

 

SemiSkimpy Steel Chainmail UNPB-BBP

 

and the textures from this resource:

 

SemiSkimpy Pantast Chainmail UNPB-BBP

 

Both can be found here:  http://www.skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/37806

 

 

 

Now, after a few hiccups I got the armor to be usable, but it has a shine like a heavy sheet of polyethylene, not chainmail.   This is what it looks like:

 

 

Look, I barely know how to spell Gimp or Nifskope, cannot even spell blender, and do not have Paintshop or 3DSMax.  Given these limitations would someone be so kind as to help me learn to fish?

 

Thanking anyone brave enough to sit down and chat...

 

[-alpha-]

well the easiest way would be to just remove the "_s.dds" texture file.

 

Rename it or move it somewhere else.

 

[Shor]

That surely would be easy...  If it had one.

 

There are four files:  a cuirasslight_0.nif, cuirasslight_1.nif,  a femalechainarmorskimpier.dds and a femailechainarmor_n.dds.

 

I guess I should add the things that I have attempted to do...

 

I have played around with the glossiness in the .nif files, from 0 to 100.  0 makes everything 'white' .  Somewhere around 12 the 'white' goes away, and everything in between there and 100 looks pretty much the same.

 

I have played around with the alpha channel in the _n.dds file, moved it to fully opaque.  It made my _n.dds file more than three times larger, but no less shiny.  I REALLY stumble around in gimp.

 

OK, any suggestions?

 

I guess I could zip up the files and post them, if anyone wanted to help...

[azmodan22]

Then you propably have a "_n.dds"

make sure the alpha layer of that dds is the texture..ridiculusly dark. The alpha layer of the _n.dds acts as a specular map, the brighter a region is, the more it shines

 

Another thing you can do is to reduce the Specular value in the .nif file It is propably too high. 

[unscwupulous]

If any of the above don't work for some reason - An extremely low value for glossiness will give a horrible shine like that too.  try between 30 -75 or something

[Shor]

OK, we've done a bit of cross-posting.  So for the specular bits...  I have two NiTriShape sections, the first seems to be related to skin the second seems to be the armor.  In the armor section's BSLighting ShaderProperty section I have Specular Color, type Color3, value #cde6fe.  Specular Strength, type float, value 1.0.

 

My glossiness values are like 45 and 30... 

 

So which specular should I adjust do you think?

[azmodan22]

reduce the glossiness value

[unscwupulous]

Glossiness controls the way the specular level is focused - the lower value gives it an even spread across the whole model.  If you sit it down at around 1 it almost makes the mesh glow, so I'd try the opposite, around 60-70.

[Shor]

reduce the glossiness value

 

I have reduced the values from 45 (stock) in the armor's NiTriShape section all the way down to 0 in steps of 5...  At around 12 I start getting 'white' armor.  I have increased from 45 all the way to 100 in steps of 5...  Not much difference.

[azmodan22]

hmm.. Do you have a _n texture?.. can you sent it to me if you do?

 

[Shor]

OK, all...  I have finally made myself happy.  I reduced the specular strength from 1 to 0.1. Leaving everything else where it was, this alone 'cured' the sheen issue.  I still do not understand much of what I did, for instance why in gimp when I moved the alpha (I THINK I was in the alpha channel...) color curve slider all the way to 100 did it do nothing except make my _n.dds file almost four times larger?

 

I'd like to understand much more of this whole armor creation process, but for now all I can say is that those that do understand these processes have my most profound respect... 

 

Thanks to all for their help...  

 

For those curious as to how it turned out,  here is the finished product.  Note that I do not have 'permission' to distribute this mashup of various people's work.

 

skimpyAncientNordChainmail.7z

[Vioxsis]

The texture path for the normal map is wrong, also you should set the BS Num UV Sets in NiTriShapeData to 4097.

[Shor]

The texture path for the normal map is wrong, also you should set the BS Num UV Sets in NiTriShapeData to 4096.

 

This may be all so true, but what I have now works just the way I want it to...  If someone could explain how my oh-so-messed up (I looked, and indeed 3 out of 4 texture paths in the .nifs do seem to be incorrect...) messed up meshes and textures give me the results they do.... 

 

What does the BS Num UV Sets do, anyway?

[Vioxsis]

What does the BS Num UV Sets do, anyway?

 

BS Num UV Sets in skyrim are used for blend maps or something close to that. source

 

Or as the NIF File Format Documentation says 

Bethesda's version of this field for nif versions 20.2.0.7 and up. Only a single bit denotes whether uv's are present. For example, see meshes/architecture/megaton/megatonrampturn45sml.nif in Fallout 3.

Either way set it to 4097

 

This may be all so true, but what I have now works just the way I want it to... If someone could explain how my oh-so-messed up (I looked, and indeed 3 out of 4 texture paths in the .nifs do seem to be incorrect...) messed up meshes and textures give me the results they do....

I'm not sure i followed that properly but if what your saying is 'i don't care if its wrong' then why do you need a explanation?

 

The armour is not pointing to (and there for not using) the normal map, if it was pointing to the map you would not have to mess around with specular values to the point where you pretty much turned it off.

 

Fixing the source of the problem would give you better results then trying to minimise its effects.

[HeavyDude]

 

What does the BS Num UV Sets do, anyway?

 

BS Num UV Sets in skyrim are used for blend maps or something close to that. source

 

Or as the NIF File Format Documentation says 

Bethesda's version of this field for nif versions 20.2.0.7 and up. Only a single bit denotes whether uv's are present. For example, see meshes/architecture/megaton/megatonrampturn45sml.nif in Fallout 3.

Either way set it to 4097

 

This may be all so true, but what I have now works just the way I want it to... If someone could explain how my oh-so-messed up (I looked, and indeed 3 out of 4 texture paths in the .nifs do seem to be incorrect...) messed up meshes and textures give me the results they do....

I'm not sure i followed that properly but if what your saying is 'i don't care if its wrong' then why do you need a explanation?

 

The armour is not pointing to (and there for not using) the normal map, if it was pointing to the map you would not have to mess around with specular values to the point where you pretty much turned it off.

 

Fixing the source of the problem would give you better results then trying to minimise its effects.

 

 

Listen to this man (?), he knows what hes talking about, and from looking at the picture it really looks as if the normal map isn't applied to the armor at all, it looks "flat"; shiny but flat.

[Shor]

When I have some time to play around, I'll set up a test instance of skyrim and try to re-work this mash-up so that it is more correct.  Right now, I'm busy testing another mod.  What I now have works for me for the purpose of enjoying my testing...

[Shor]

 

What does the BS Num UV Sets do, anyway?

 

BS Num UV Sets in skyrim are used for blend maps or something close to that. source

 

Or as the NIF File Format Documentation says 

Bethesda's version of this field for nif versions 20.2.0.7 and up. Only a single bit denotes whether uv's are present. For example, see meshes/architecture/megaton/megatonrampturn45sml.nif in Fallout 3.

Either way set it to 4097

 

This may be all so true, but what I have now works just the way I want it to... If someone could explain how my oh-so-messed up (I looked, and indeed 3 out of 4 texture paths in the .nifs do seem to be incorrect...) messed up meshes and textures give me the results they do....

I'm not sure i followed that properly but if what your saying is 'i don't care if its wrong' then why do you need a explanation?

 

The armour is not pointing to (and there for not using) the normal map, if it was pointing to the map you would not have to mess around with specular values to the point where you pretty much turned it off.

 

Fixing the source of the problem would give you better results then trying to minimise its effects.

 

 

First of all, I apologize if my meaning was not clear.  When I asked how my messed up mod was working, I was not being facetious.  What I meant was how did my  mess work at all considering that I only had one .nif (cuirasslight_0.nif) that pointed to any texture at all, and that was the .dds.  Nothing pointed to the _n file at all (as you correctly pointed out)  So, if I knew how it worked at all, I might better understand how an armor is all put together.  My ignorant surmise is that because all armors are a combine of the _0.nif and the _1.nif, if there is no _1 texture file (for instance) then all information is derived from the texture pointed to by the _0.nif.  If that were the case, then as long as you had a properly made _0.nif file, (all textures listed that were required, properly pathed) then that would be enough to derive the full texture set.  Sort of a case of double redundancy.  Does that make any sense at all? 

 

Now for a practical question.  I have two NiTriShape sections, # 1 (I call that the 'skin' section) and # 8 (that I call the 'armor' section).  Which one do I add the BS Num UV to?  Or both? 

 

And could you give me a plain language explanation of what the BS Num UV actually do?  I think I'm misunderstanding because of the UV bit - It might not have the meaning I'm trying to give it, and I cannot find any explanation for its use that makes it make sense to me.

 

 

[Vioxsis]

First of all, I apologize if my meaning was not clear.  When I asked how my messed up mod was working, I was not being facetious.  What I meant was how did my  mess work at all considering that I only had one .nif (cuirasslight_0.nif) that pointed to any texture at all, and that was the .dds.  Nothing pointed to the _n file at all (as you correctly pointed out)  So, if I knew how it worked at all, I might better understand how an armor is all put together.  My ignorant surmise is that because all armors are a combine of the _0.nif and the _1.nif, if there is no _1 texture file (for instance) then all information is derived from the texture pointed to by the _0.nif.  If that were the case, then as long as you had a properly made _0.nif file, (all textures listed that were required, properly pathed) then that would be enough to derive the full texture set.  Sort of a case of double redundancy.  Does that make any sense at all?

Well when skyrim loads the mesh all data in it gets loaded, so say you were weight 0 all the data in _0.nif would load. then say you change your weight from 0 to anywhere up to 99 the shape would change based on the _1.nif but all the data would be from the _0.nif. If you set your weight to 100 the data would be loaded from the _1.nif, and then the same but in reverse would be true.

 

Also say if your weight was 50 (or any number that is not 0 or 100) and you load up the game then the nif that the esp is pointing too would be the one that loads up its data.

 

Now for a practical question.  I have two NiTriShape sections, # 1 (I call that the 'skin' section) and # 8 (that I call the 'armor' section).  Which one do I add the BS Num UV to?  Or both?

Leave the body 'skin' as 1 and change 'armour' to 4097.

 

And could you give me a plain language explanation of what the BS Num UV actually do?  I think I'm misunderstanding because of the UV bit - It might not have the meaning I'm trying to give it, and I cannot find any explanation for its use that makes it make sense to me.

I could not find a good explanation neither, but you can see its effect in game. With it set to 1 the normal map renders incorrectly (looks flat with the odd jagged edge) and renders correctly when set to 4097. Just to note i don't believe the numbers have any value other than 4097 = 1 (on) and all other numbers (?) = 0 (off).

 

I have not tested all other numbers to see what happens but 4097 gets the normal map to show up properly and that is what i want it to do.

 

 

And just in case you want to know why the body/skin should be 1 instead of 4097 it might be due to it using an object space normal map, where the armour is using a tangent space normal.

 

Or it could be due to the way skyrim is applying the skin texture set to the body..

[Shor]

Thank you very much, I am getting closer to understanding how all of this works.  I am now embarking on a 3ds max / blender set of tutorials, so wish me luck...

 

An explanation I got of BS Num UV Sets that makes some sense is that there are faves to the vertices in the mesh and the option to 'light' them (or not, I guess) is whether the BS Num UV Sets is 1 or 4097.  No mention is ever made of any other number being used, or of trying to use any other number...  It is like 'on' or 'off' as near as I can tell.  I also find '4097' to be an odd number...

 

Those are my words, paraphrasing and condensing what must be some two hundred different links on the subject.  There seems to be some guild that one must be a member of to understand some of this stuff, because everyone talks as if everyone else totally understands what various terms mean.  Even in what are labelled 'beginner level' tutorials.  No one ever seems to explain the underlying principles, leaving it more of an art than a science.

[Vioxsis]

If there is such a guild nobody asked me to join.

And good luck on your max/blender adventure, i went the max route myself but with both the biggest hurdle is importing and exporting. <-- and that is mostly due to having to use/learn nifskope...     

 

 

[unscwupulous]

@shor

 

It might sound pretty complex what Vioxis was talking about there and in a way it is really I guess. With BSnumuvsets as 1 then tangents and binormals will be disabled (fine in theory for object space normal maps like body,face and hands) though I've found in game during a rush test of a mesh that it really didn't seem to matter (could have been due to a number of factors though).  However since it should matter I always make a point of setting body parts to 1 and the rest to 4097 (followed by an update tangent spaces)

 

Good luck with the tuts.