Is there skyrim texturing documentation somewhere?

[Monsto Brukes]

There's ZERO on creationkit.com. It's one thing to hear form someone "do this and this" it's yet another thing to see documentation and understand it for myself.

 

[echo711]

what type of texturing are you looking for?

[Monsto Brukes]

ANY docs about texturing anything in the game.

[echo711]

is there anything in specific? like uv mapping? or just replacing textures?

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/6152/?

 

this tutorial explains the type of texture format Skyrim uses what textures do what, that's a start. 

[JRCosta]

Something like this? http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/tutorials/category/39-graphic-artistry/

[Monsto Brukes]

Something like this? http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/tutorials/category/39-graphic-artistry/

 

That's kind of a "this is how you do it" kinda thing.

 

What DXT compressions should you use at what times?

Why name the normal map as _n? Isn't there a difference to the game regarding _n and _msn?

Specular uses the alpha channel . . . of which texture? The diffuse, specular or the n/msn?

 

And as I'm googling around again, I'm seeing comments that the nif file format isn't well documented either. Surprise.

[JRCosta]

This site here has some great tutorials, explaining how to create and apply different textures; I haven't see the texturing videos (I'm far behind in the tutorials, the the paint heights), but he explains everything in detail, so you can find some useful information here.

 

Good luck!  

[echo711]

DXT1 is the one you would be using for all skyrim type textures and DXT5 for textures that have an alpha channel, but both have terrible default compression, so you will get artifacts if you save with those. "8.8.8.8 ARGB 32 bpp | unsigned" is the uncompressed format you can use to avoid compression artifacs.

 

as for skyrim normals naming _msn is for the bump mapping(mainly used in bodies), _n is bump map with an alpha channel(used for specular), _sk is the tone mapping (bodies), _s is the specular (bodies)

 

note that if you have a transparent diffuse map, you dont need the normals to have the same alpha channel as the diffuse, as the games just overlays the alpha to all the normals from the diffuse.