65 réponses à ce sujet

[Ambaryerno]

I'll check the alpha layer on the Warden Sword's spec map. It's odd because of the swords I've tested in-game so far, this is the only one that the grip behaves in this way. All the others have a minute bit of spec on the grip, just enough to make it look like leather.



As I've said before, I SWEAR this model is cursed....

[tmp7704]

I don't know about cursed... look at it this way, all this troubles actually gave you a deeper understanding how all the parts of DA models come together, including proper way to make the specular maps, normal maps and such. That's likely going to be pretty valuable experience when it comes to doing rest of the work.

[Ambaryerno]

True, that. And there is a bloody LOT of it left to do. I've gotten six skinned models to the point of checking them out in the game. Out of 32 that I've got built as a bare mesh so far. And this is probably less than a third of the total number of melee weapons I have to do.

And speaking of learning things, it REALLY pays off to PROOFREAD one's MAO file more carefully. *FACEPALM*

Modifié par Ambaryerno, 08 mai 2010 - 05:26 .

[Ambaryerno]

Ok, another issue that's come up since I corrected the Normal Map issue:



Once the Normal Map is applied, the entirety of weapons take on a sort of waxy appearance. This is fine for grips that are supposed to be leather, but the metal bits end up not looking like metal.

[tmp7704]

Well, you could perhaps simply leave the part of normal map which covers the blade blank/unaffected, i.e. fill it with 50% grey?

[Ambaryerno]

Unfortunately, there's stuff there like small scratches and dings along the edge of the blade, while the pommel on the Cousland sword has a lot of raised/sunken details that would be a pain, much less require WAY too high of a poly count, to actually model. Both the guard and pommel of the warden sword you can also see have a good bit of detailing.



This is turning into a case of fixing one thing breaks another. Under regular RGB normal maps the color and metal-ness is fine, but the entire mesh is all-smoothed. I set individual smoothing groups, and it breaks the colors. Fix the normal maps to correct the color, now everything looks like very shiny plastic.

[ladydesire]

Ugh? That's one reason I don't do weapon meshes. Player/NPC models have enough headache inducing quirks.

[tmp7704]

Ambaryerno wrote...

Unfortunately, there's stuff there like small scratches and dings along the edge of the blade, while the pommel on the Cousland sword has a lot of raised/sunken details that would be a pain, much less require WAY too high of a poly count, to actually model. Both the guard and pommel of the warden sword you can also see have a good bit of detailing.

Well, the scratches and detailing of handle should not affect the blade overall, only the areas where they are actually placed i.e. spots on the edge and the handle. Unless you are doing something else in the normal map.

This is turning into a case of fixing one thing breaks another. Under regular RGB normal maps the color and metal-ness is fine, but the entire mesh is all-smoothed. I set individual smoothing groups, and it breaks the colors. Fix the normal maps to correct the color, now everything looks like very shiny plastic.

It sounds like something is (still) wrong with the normal map and/or specular map you are using. These can be difficult to get right. I'd reccomend to really take a look at the default weapon maps which come with the game, going as far actually as using them as starting point for your own work.

Or could you maybe zip and upload your normal/specular maps to somewhere, so they can be inspected?

[Ambaryerno]

I'll see about putting them together and uploading, and also looking at some of the defaults when I get the chance.



I'm also having problems telling whether the game is reading the high/lows correctly. There's some parts of the Cousland sword that should look engraved that instead appear to be raised instead, even if I try inverting the colors.

[Ambaryerno]

tmp,



Normal and Spec maps for the Family Sword are up on the Project page.

[ChewyGumball]

FYI, inverting both alpha and green channel may not actually invert the entier map. Try inverting just one and see what happens.

[tmp7704]

OK, two things of note.

* the specular map has the alpha channel set to full white. As discussed, this means the whole sword is given full intensity of specular highlights and as such will shine like dog's bollocks.

* related to this -- the material file you quoted earlier seems to be missing some textures. This is what the default weapons use as their .mao file instead:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<MaterialObject Name="W_LSW_LS01a_0">
 <Material Name="Weapon.mat"></Material>
 <Texture Name="mml_tLightmap" ResName="LM.dds" RequiresID="true"></Texture>
 <Texture Name="mml_tDiffuse" ResName="w_lsw_fama_0d.dds"></Texture>
 <Texture Name="mml_tNormalMap" ResName="w_lsw_fama_0n.dds"></Texture>
 <Texture Name="mml_tSpecularMask" ResName="w_lsw_fama_0s.dds"></Texture>
 <Texture Name="mml_tTintMask" ResName="w_lsw_fama_0t.dds"></Texture>
 <Vector4f Name="mml_vFalloffParams" value="0.00 1.00 1.50 1.50"></Vector4f>
 <Float Name="mml_fSpecularReflectionMult" value="1.00"></Float>
</MaterialObject>

i have given the sword a completely blank tint texture (full black) so it doesn't affect the render. The "lightmap" entry might be making a difference though. When i view the sword in game it looks pretty metalic to me.

I have put a completed package here so you check it on your end: http://social.biowar...ct_file_id=4342  it replaces the dwarven longsword, for testing purposes.

On separate note, i wouldn't try to push too much detail in the normal maps. The way they're compressed means quite serious reduction in fidelity (the alpha channel of texture is compressed using 4x4 pixel blocks and interpolation) so any smooth gradients and thin lines are given to be lost in the process or at least corrupted.

[Ambaryerno]

I tried adding the blank tint mask and lightmap, and correcting the Spec Map by copying the grayscale image to the Alpha and don't notice much difference. However it's a match for how the armor looks, so I guess like it's just the way DAO handles textures and surfaces in the game and there might not be anything more that can be done with it.



I was able to get it into an angle where I could get a better look at the mesh, and the Normal map does look like it's working correctly. It's just very hard to get a close enough look at the Normal Mapped components in the game.



Thanks for the help, guys. I think I've got enough going forward to handle the rest of the weapons. Well, except for the insane amount of work left to do....



If anyone out there has some free time to help churn out some textures I'd be much obliged...

[tmp7704]

Just a small tip re: hard to get a good look. It helps to put the weapon on the back of one character and then select another character to be the camera focus and move this another character around. This allows for better control of where camera is and where it's pointing, and you can get it much closer to the equipped items than it's normally allowed.

[DarthParametric]

Also, get yourself into a corner, as that will force the camera in close.

[Ambaryerno]

Already did that. Unfortunately, it's still hard to get a good angle because the character either disappears, or the weapon clips into the camera.