I've just recently put together my first real mod and ran into a snag. I'm replacing Liara's default white outfit with Ajax armor. Everything's in and working fine, but there's a weird issue with shadows and lighting. I think it might be the normal map, but I'm not sure. I also was wondering how to go about lighting her armor, or if that's even possible with this replacement.
Some examples of the issue:
And one in motion:
Thanks in advance! 
Make sure you save the normal map as a v8u8, you can do this with the Direct X Texture Tool that's in the DirX SDK. It's also included with ME3Explorer.
Looks like a format issue, considering the error on the seams there.
Also may I add that the spec textures are not consistent. The best luck I have had was to take the original textures and try to see what colors they used for shin, flat and so on. Then try to take the new armor textures you just added and match the colors there. Finally I had a ton of trouble replacing Liara's CE outfit. The pink one. Finally I realized that the Diff texture was a DXT-5 meaning the it has an alpha channel map. I believe this may be your issue as well since they basically use the same mesh. I think the Alpha channel is used for the shine on a few meshes for whatever reason and this is one of them. Once I figured that out I tried to mirror how the original worked and it seemed to fix the issues. See my Liara CE mod.
Thank you both, Ottemis & Bomma72 I've done the best I could with the tips you both gave and I'm happy enough with the result. Norm's fixed, but the spec's still not perfect. She's still got weird shadows & bright spots, but I can live with it 
Thanks again! 
Sigh. I lied. It's not as ready as I thought.
I did some more testing and the light/shadow problem gets much worse in several places. I am officially stumped. The normal is brand new and made in Photoshop, then converted to v8u8 in the DirectX tool following saltisgood's instruction. So it must be the spec (and spwr?) file, but I've done literally everything I could think of to them both and nothing's working. I matched colors with the originals, greyscaled, blacked them out, greyed them out, whited them out, blacked out just the alpha, put in different combinations of both files...I even tried Shepard's spec. I then looked at the mesh in Blender, thinking that might be the culprit, but near as I can see, it's fine. (it's a .psk, ripped right from the original .pcc file)
It's driving me up the wall, to say the least. I gotta be missing something, but hell if I can see what. I am seriously considering scrapping this if I can't fix it, and I would really hate to do that. She looks darn good in Ajax and I really wanna get this working. Anybody have any idea what's going wrong here? 
Thanks in advance...
I do have a copy of 3ds, (it's 2012, with the .psk importer/exporter script) but I uninstalled it for more space. I'll gladly reinstall it if it means I can fix this. I do have to warn you that I'm a bit of a noob with it, but I do know some of the basics. I am more than willing to try it!
Thank you so much, yet again, Ottemis!
How did you pull the armor into the game? did you pull it in as a Package or a UDK? I just noticed that even if you export a mesh in PSK format do no editing and then Pull it in it still looks strange. You should convert it using UDK editor and then pull it in and see if that fixes it.
Just a note...I ran into this same sort of issue up the ying-yang when I was replacing the Collector Armor with the Colossus Armor. It turned out (in my case) to be an issue of the normal map AND the spec map. With the right normal map the seams essentially disappeared and the shine went away when I finally decoded the spec map colors for the Collector Armor. By trial and error to a great degree.
You are, in some ways, closer than you think. I think.
I'll try reconverting it,and if that doesn't help I'll try Ottemis' fix. After I get home from work
Thanks for the tip, Bomma
Did you make any changes to the mesh at all? I can provide you with the mesh after I do some import/export mumbo jumbo so you can quickly try out if that was the culprit. Just stick it straight into me3explorer, I'll throw it through 3ds and the UDK for you.
Edit: Helmetless female ajax mesh in upk format.
Ottemis, Bomma, Getorex, you people are awesome! It was the conversion to upk that was breaking it! I tested with the mesh you provided, Ottemis, and everything was good. (spiky, but good) One new conversion of my psk later and ta da!
Check it out!
Now I just gotta dial in the spec and pack it up! I am so happy I could cry. You all will get much thanks and credit when this bad boy goes up. I couldn't have done it without you guys!
(sorry, I'm just super excited right now...)
I knew that was it. I had the same problem yesterday, never had it before but then I never did a straight PSK before.
Looking good. I should upload my Ashley mod soon and you can have everyone in the same armor.
@Bomma: What's odd is I have done straight psk import before and never had this problem. I think that's what was throwing me.
It's nearly ready. Just gotta tidy up the other half of the mod (a science uniform!), add a few recolors, then bundle it all up. I'm super excited to share it with everyone. Looking forward to your Ash mod too, Bomma. Ajax for everyone!
Yeah that should go up tomorrow. On here though I haven't done the nexus yet. I believe the psk thing is only when there are mirror textures.
And now I know! I only ever did it with hair meshes before, to put several in at once, and there were never any issues. Well, now I'll be converting all of those meshes to upk files or mods! This has been a good learning experience.
Ok, I'm into the final testing and packaging stages and all is (so far!) well, but I've got one more question. I know you can install textures in specific pccs with the "select pcc" option in mod maker, and apparently it's possible to build that directly into a .mod file itself, but I can't find instruction on how. Can someone please point me in the right direction?
Does this replace the white uniform on the Citadel and Normandy as well as in missions?
Does this replace the white uniform on the Citadel and Normandy as well as in missions?
She'll be in a science uniform on the ship and the Citadel, including during the Citadel DLC. I'm including Ottemis' gorgeous HD textures (with her gracious permission) for both Chakwas' black uniform and Liara's original ME1 green uniform
Edit: Like so.
Here is how I did it. You have to use the NC or non-combat pcc, Add the mesh, then add the correct textures via Texexplorer for the NC pcc (make sure you have a copy of the original "combat" textures some where because you will need to copy them back). Now copy the NC pcc to a different location, put back the correct textures for the "combat" outfit, After it is done copy back the NC pcc and you should have the correct textures for the combat pcc and non-combat pcc. You will need to update the TOC before you play. I am not sure how you would make a deploy-able mod for this however.
@Bomma: yup, that's pretty much how I did it originally (put in the ajax textures, copy those pccs, put in the science textures, put the copied pccs back). I have the textures in two seperate mod files right now and using the "select pcc" option works beautifully (no copying! ), but I'm hoping there is a way to build the option directly in. I've heard vague mentions of it in various places, but no one's ever said how. It would certainly make life easier on the user's end.
(it's really more for my EDI mod, she has more files to change, but it does apply here too)
She'll be in a science uniform on the ship and the Citadel, including during the Citadel DLC. I'm including Ottemis' gorgeous HD textures (with her gracious permission) for both Chakwas' black uniform and Liara's original ME1 green uniform
Edit: Like so.
Looks good, I'd be interested in using this mod as long as it doesn't get rid of her silver combat suit and just replaces that silly white outfit.
Looks good, I'd be interested in using this mod as long as it doesn't get rid of her silver combat suit and just replaces that silly white outfit.
Thank you. And it'll only get rid of that unattractive white thing, her lovely silver armor is untouched.
She'll be in a science uniform on the ship and the Citadel, including during the Citadel DLC. I'm including Ottemis' gorgeous HD textures (with her gracious permission) for both Chakwas' black uniform and Liara's original ME1 green uniform
Edit: Like so.
Nice.
I want.
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