48 réponses à ce sujet

[olnorton]

But he also chose to prevent the tint maps from operating at full strength in some places on the maps (which I first noticed along the sides of the noses in some elf heads), meaning that the rest of the body will be tinted more strongly than the head. You can modify that by changing the alpha channel of the tint map. All-white in the alpha channel means full-strength tints.

I've probably got the wrong end of the stick, as I know absolutely nothing of textures, but the alpha channel appears to be completely white now.

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[Tchos]

From the filename, it looks like you have the diffuse map open, not the tint map.  The tint map's alpha channel is the one that handles the tint strength, and that's what needs to be white.  The diffuse alpha channel handles transparency (which is the solution that I don't recommend for at least two reasons).

[olnorton]

Forgive my ignorance, but that would be the moonelf2_t.dds. The Alpha Channel just shows white eyebrows on a light grey background.
If I make it all white, will the eyebrows still show up?

[Tchos]

Yes.  The white eyebrows means that the eyebrows are fully tintable.  The rest being grey means that the skin is only partially tintable.  You want it all white so it will be tinted the same amount as the skin of the body.  It will not make the skin and the eyebrows the same colour.

 

You may also want to sample the colour of the skin of the body you're using, and use that colour to paint the bottom of the neck on the head texture so that it blends into the colour Xaltar used.

[olnorton]

Thanks Tchos, It might take me a week of reading in gimp, to figure out how to make the alpha channel white thou.

[Tchos]

I haven't tried it in Gimp, but in Photoshop you can just paint directly onto the alpha channels.  You should be able to just delete the alpha channel entirely and save the DDS as 24-bit instead of 32-bit, and it should have the same effect.  (No alpha channel in the tint map means the whole texture's tints are 100% strength.)

 

There is one other thing besides this part and matching the diffuse colour that could still prevent it from matching completely, and that's if the specularity map is too different between the body's skin and the head's skin.  That's the alpha channel of the normal map.

[olnorton]

I removed the Alpha channel from the _t.dds.
The neck still looks dark grey in the sun, & really light in the shade.
No tan skin tone at all. I'll try painting the neck on the diffuse map tan, if that doesn't work, I'll give up.
It's getting beyond the simple job I thought it would be.

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[Tchos]

Specular maps can cause marked differences in lighting because of the way they cause the surfaces to react to the light.  If what you try doesn't work, you could send me the textures for both the head and the body, and I'll take a look.

[olnorton]

Knock yourself out.
https://www.dropbox....xtures.zip?dl=0
I was getting nowhere.
These three heads have different skin tones and all look OK with this armor.

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[ColorsFade]

I'm following this thread with great interest. I just installed Nen's hair and head final, which includes Xaltar's work. I noticed the different skins on the neck right off, which was unfortunate, because there's a few faces I really liked, but they look horrid on some of the different armors I'm using. 

 

Hope you get this figured out. I'd like to use a few of those faces myself. 

[Tchos]

I've determined one possible reason you're not getting results.  I opened the MDB for the head (thank you for providing those, even though I neglected to ask for them) and observed that while it calls for Moonelf2_d.dds, which you provided, the tint map it calls for is Moonelf1_t, and you provided (and presumably have been modifying) Moonelf2_t, which is a variant texture containing a large scar going down over the character's right eye.  I don't know if you also opened the normal map to adjust the specularity since you didn't include that one, but it also wants 1 (the unscarred normal one), not 2.  I'll adjust the diffuse map to match the armour skin tone and also adjust the tint strength, which should provide a noticeably better match.

 

However, I also checked the normal map for the armour, and found that it has an all-white specular map, which is very bad.  I expect that's the reason for the very strange play of the light over the skin in the shadows of the image you posted from Vordan's Hero Creator.  Xaltar's heads have a very good specular map, which will clash very strongly with the armour, especially at the neck, where he reduced the specularity to zero.  My solution for this particular combination would be to give the armour a proper specular map, and match the head to the armour with that.  However, you say there are no conflicts with non-Xaltar heads, and this would make the skin and armour behave more realistically and nicely under the light than they currently do, which may introduce a noticeable difference.

 

In any case, the stock heads all contain decent specular maps, so if you're using any custom heads without them, I would strongly recommend adding them rather than leaving the armour as it is.  You may have come across some custom heads (especially on PWs) that tint with the realism of plastic dolls (especially drow), and that's because of poor or nonexistent specular maps, and those will never match with most armour, since they typically have them, unlike this particular one.

 

What would you prefer?

[olnorton]

What program did you use to read the MDB?
The only difference between Moonelf1_t & Moonelf2_t is the break in the eyebrow.
But yes, it does mean I removed the Alpha layer from the wrong file.
With the Alpha layer removed from moonelf1_t.dds, it is the best results I've had so far.

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The trouble with changing Nytir's Morag armour to match the head, is that all the Aleanne & Chimney Fish armours & clothing work the same way, and they all look alright with the other heads.

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Having said that, Qara, Elanee, & Neeshka can't wear heavy armour anyway. These are the base armors you see when they aren't wearing anything.
So yes, if you want to add a proper specular map to the Morag armor, that would be good.
It will also be interesting to see how that effects how they look on the other heads.
If it's not too hard, I might be able to copy the changes to the -n.dds for other armours.

[Tchos]

I used MDB Cloner to open the MDB to check the texture associations.

 

It's possible that the other heads would still look fine with speculars added to the Morag armour.  At any rate, I spot checked a few of the Aleanne and Chimneyfish clothes, and they have proper specular maps on their skins.  It's just the Morag one that doesn't, and that wasn't by Chimneyfish, but by Zylch (at least the texture was, based on the stamp inside it).  So by doing this, the Morag armour will be in line with the better standard.

 

I've done most of it, but still need to mask off the non-skin parts of the specular, and then I'll post the modified ones.

[Tchos]

Something else has occurred to me, and that's that the Morag armour mesh itself may not be set to use the specular map at all, which would explain why it's not blown out with harsh light reflections when you're standing in full sunlight, even when the alpha channel was still fully white.  In that case, my modifications to the specular maps won't have any effect, and both skin and metal will be equally dull and matte regardless of the lighting.  I might be able to turn that setting on, but armour pieces are a little more complicated than static meshes, so I'm not sure I can do it.  I'll look into it.

[Tchos]

In the meantime, here are the replacement textures.

https://dl.dropboxus...for Olnorton.7z

 

Included are:

1. A modified diffuse map for the elf head, which blends the skin colour of the neck into the skin colour in the Morag armour
2. A modified normal map for the elf head, which adds specularity to the neck (it already exists on the rest of the head).
3. A modified normal map for the Morag armour, which adds a proper specular map, and also normalises the main map, which had a grey border, which could mess up the edges at mipmap distances.

[olnorton]

It's just the Morag one that doesn't, and that wasn't by Chimneyfish, but by Zylch (at least the texture was, based on the stamp inside it).

The armour was by Nytir & uses Zylch's nude base. (as did Aleanne & Chimneyfish)
http://neverwinterva...aresss-armor-21

I appreciate the effort, and I'm learning a little.

[olnorton]

Thanks Tchos!
That's a huge improvement.
Zhjaeve never looked so good.

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With Aleanne's Waterdeep Underwear.

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With one of the other heads still looks OK.

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[Tchos]

Zhjaeve never looked so good.

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So that's what her face looks like under that veil... Glad it worked out.

[olnorton]

Well I spent a day trying to get rid of the grey neck from Xaltar's Tiefling head.
This was the best I could do, and it doesn't even look that good most of the time.
But the head looks so good (and nearly matches the portrait) so I've decided to play with it how it is.
The problem can't be the _t.dds alpha layer, because that effects the whole head equally.
Like wise, the neck colour on the .dds isn't that much different than many other parts. (and I've tried many different tints on that area.)
I think the key is in the _n.dds, as that is where the neck looks different from the rest. (I tried darkening & lightening the alpha around the neck part, but it didn't do what I wanted.
Anyway, I'm off to start a new game with my Tiefling rogue.

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[Tchos]

I never installed the Tiefling heads, but I can take a look at this one if you like.

[olnorton]

Here it is default, with lightest default skin option.
The game just seems to apply lighting effects differently to heads & armour.
But if you can get it better than I could, I'll certainly take it.

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https://www.dropbox....efling2.7z?dl=0

[olnorton]

What determines how high the head sits in relation to the armor?
I like this Moire's head, but with some stock clothes and leathers, the collarbones stick through the clothes.
There is one stock shirt where the whole head model is floating above the body with daylight between them.

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[-Semper-]

What determines how high the head sits in relation to the armor?

they all sit on the same height, which is defined through the head bone of the skeleton. the issues you encounter are just examples of "bad" mesh modeling. those are meshes created by different people and mixed with the ones from obsidian. my bet is that they just created the heads or clothes without importing obsidian's meshes as size reference.

[olnorton]

they all sit on the same height, which is defined through the head bone of the skeleton. the issues you encounter are just examples of "bad" mesh modeling. those are meshes created by different people and mixed with the ones from obsidian. my bet is that they just created the heads or clothes without importing obsidian's meshes as size reference.

Thanks Semper, I thought it might be something like that, and not easy to fix.