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3D & Animation [HELP!] Shiny textures when reskinning

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Ophidion

Member
Aug 22, 2011
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#1
I've reskinned DJ Scully, but when trying to reskin Steampunk DJ Scully the texture is really really shiny in game, I need help with this please.

I imported it into a DXT3, and imported it back as a DXT5. I tried everything else and made sure alpha and masked were unchecked but it's shiny no matter what.

Also, Steampunk_DJScully_CMB is not shiny when you first open it. But after even just importing my texture that changes to a really shiny one. I don't know why. Is it a safegate to prevent modding?

1332527007.png
 
#4
there are 4 channel in a picture
r = red
g = green
b = blue
a = alpha

each channel by itself is black and white, white = 255, black = 0
so if r= 255, and b = 255, and the g = 0, the color is purple.
the alpha channel controls transparency, black = transparent, white = solid, and in between is variations of translucency.

in the combiners that twi made, they use the alpha channel to control how much shine (called a cubemap) shows on different parts of the texture, so if there is no alpha channel, then the whole thing will be shiny.
 
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#8
Yes, but when you imported your texture you somehow lost the alpha information.

The combiner combines the skin texture with a shiny effect, but it doesn't just make it shiny everywhere but only where the texture's alpha is opaque. That way you can, for example, make the bible on Reverend Albert's back shiny while his coat isn't. You can also use this to achieve a look that's similar to a fake 3d mapping technique like normal maps or bump maps, by making parts of clothing's folds shiny while leaving others non-shiny.

When you imported your texture without alpha information the shiny effect got applied all over. That's why it looks so bright now.

If you want to use the shininess, give your texture alpha information. If you don't care about the shininess at all use your texture as the character's skin instead of the combiner.

(and don't just replace textures in the game! Make a new character)
 
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#11
Ophidion said:
Can someone post an example? I'm still getting shiny textures.
Click to expand...

Tripwire definitely encourages modding :D

As the other guys said, you have an alpha texture problem, means, I suspect you don't have an alpha with your Specularity Mask texture.

As ro_sauce says - what tools - you using Photoshop? Photoshop lists the primary colours of your tex and an extra channel at the bottom of that list: the alpha. You should look up some tutorials on how to make an alpha channel using photoshop, or similar, maybe Gimp which is free.

Two kinds of alpha: Black/White (DXT3) for foliage etc. Grayscale: DXT5 to give a smooth shine. Having made your tex+alpha, to get it into the editor, export from Photoshop using the free .DDS Photoshop Plugin which gives you DXT1; 3 or 5 according to what you tell the exporter.

DXT1 has no alpha.
DXT3 has black/white alpha
DXT5 has greyscale alpha

Then, in the edtior again, after import, to make use of your alpha you'd start off with a basic Shader. File > NewMaterial and a Shader is the default choice.

Your basic shader has various functions, including making a shine but it has to be set up the right way with the right textures in the right places.

Right click a shader in the tex Editor, click Properties --Shaders have a red line around them-- besides being named Shader - and inside a Shader you should see this list:
Diffuse:
Opacity:
Specular:
SpecularityMask:
etc...

First off you must have Diffuse - usually DXT1 which has no alpha.

Opacity - if you're using DXT3 (black/white alpha) will only show the white part, relative to the top RGB tex... not your problem just now.

Specular - you need a TexEnvMap eg: in the file: Weapons1st_tex > Shaders > TexEnvMap env_shine is probably ideal for you.

I'm guessing that presently you have a TexEnvMap but your SpecularityMask tex doesn't have an alpha and that will give you glaring whiteness or similar.

SpecularityMask: Preferably DXT5 because greyscale alpha offers a smooth shine. Using DXT3 (black/white) alpha here would be give a rough looking shine. (I often use this tex in the Diffuse as well which saves space, rather than having a separate DXT1.

Seems a complicated process at first but after you learn alphas you can make all kinds of interesting effects. Also check out the shaders, combiners, finalBlends already in the files.

Hope that helps.
 
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#13
some small clarifications:

dxt1 can have alpha, but only 1 bit (either all white or all black)
dxt3 can use grayscale alpha, but it is.... chunky-ish, like comparing 16bit to 32bit colors
dxt5 contains the most alpha info, so use it for smooth gradient alpha's.

basically,
use dxt1 for anything without alpha,
use dxt3 for anything with alpha,
use dxt5 for something with fine smooth alpha.
 
Last edited:
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#14
ro_sauce said:
some small clarifications:

dxt1 can have alpha, but only 1 bit (either all white or all black)
dxt3 can use grayscale alpha, but it is.... chunky-ish, like comparing 16bit to 32bit colors
dxt5 contains the most alpha info, so use it for smooth gradient alpha's.

basically,
use dxt1 for anything without alpha,
use dxt3 for anything with alpha,
use dxt5 for something with fine smooth alpha.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that clarification. All helps Ophidion realize texturing is quite rabbit hole :D UDN also goes into more detail explaining DXTc http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/TextureComparison.html

http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/TextureSpecifications.html <- more details. Also refers to the NVIDIA tex compressor plugin for Adobe.
 
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#16
you dont have to use dxt for textures, that is just levels of compression, you can just save as targa and import into kfed (it will be rgba8 format, which is huge) then you can compress it to dxt.

if you have shiny textures still, i dont think youre doing the alpha channel correctly, why dont you just post what you have so far, or if you want, we can walk you through making alpha channels for what youre making.
 
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