[PS] Normal Mapping and it's Importance

[TheImperialDragon]

Alright, what I suggest doing is erasing the normal map on the fringes of the banner, so you'd have something like this for the Normal map.

Sorry, will have another pic of a Normal map in a sec... GIMP just crashed again.

So, basically, there shouldn't be anything on the Normal map on the transparent sections, so it may be whatever program you are using to make the base normal map of or something like that, let me know how it goes.

[noremorse]

It didn't work. I got the "Too many channels to export (5)" error. It won't let me save until after I flatten the image (which gets rid of the transparent bg and replaces it with white. I don't know if GIMP gets that, so I'm going to get and try it later.

Looked at the channels and there is an alpha channel already, filled out exactly the way it should be. Black being transparent, white being fully visible. I suspect it may have something to do with the mesh itself.

[TheImperialDragon]

Send me the mesh and the textures, I'll see what I can do.

[noremorse]

Alright. =)

Keep in mind you already have the mesh and texture (names), so you will need to make backups of the original textures. That is, if you want... because these will soon be included in one of the releases of Reich Parkeep.

Also keep in mind that this normal map is *not* the one I'll be using in the end. I was just messing with transparencies. It's not that good. :eek:

[TheImperialDragon]

What model did you say it was?

BTW: I might go offline for a bit (hours, minutes?) in a few minutes, just so you know.

[noremorse]

BannerDunDanger01.nif
It's in the /ST/Banner/ directory.

[TheImperialDragon]

Hmm... Somehow I missed that.

Anyway, I'm having the same trouble, I found some pretty neat stuff in the NIFskope about tweaking bounding boxes and stuff, but the frustrating thing is I've done this before... And I can't figure it out, I managed it with this mesh which is a retex of the blood decal...

[Razorwing]

If by bounding boxes you (TheImperialDragon) mean what I think you mean - the oddly-colored box that shows up when selecting a model in the CS - try using the Reset XForm command before exporting the model from Max. It almost always fixes it.

When it comes to my models, whether created by me or edited by me, I've omitted updating most of the ones that have transparant textures after gundalf's exporter became available. Since it can't export transparancy, it's of dubious use to export those models for the benefit of collision. The Reset XForm's benefit on bounding boxes is something I learned rather recently, so it's common to see corrupted bounding boxes on those, like the banner noremorse is working on.

Oh, and sorry for butting in on the normal map / transparancy discussion above. My mind must have been elsewhere. I'm sure you guys are right, because the cases where I've gotten transparant textures to work on my models were when they didn't have normal maps. Still, there has to be a way around it because Bethesda does it all the time, like for instance with "Oblivion\Data\textures\plants\bwfern02_n". Whether the answer lies in the texture or in the nif, I'm not sure, but if it lies in the nif I'm stumped on how to solve it.

Edit 2006-07-29, 01:00 C.E.T.: Would you be able to use something like in the attachment? Just a quick edit so if you can't use it, no worries.

[waerloga]

Transparency for your mesh must be activated in Nifskope: Right-Click in 'Block List' and select 'Block -> Insert -> A -> NiAlphaProperty.' Then Left-Click on 'NiTriStrips' or 'NiTriShapes'; whatever your mesh is, and look in the 'Block Details' for 'Num Properties' and add 1 to whatever number is there, so if it was 3 make it 4, now Right-Click on Properties in the same field and select 'Array -> Update'; this will add a blank 'Properties' section to the list. Select this empty section and enter the number where your NiAlphaProperty sits and instantly the Aplha Channel of your ColourMap DDS will be applied and you will have transparency. Ideally, I have found, it is better to have the transparent part of the mesh as a seperate Object/Nif, and import it in and only apply the NiAlphaProperty to that object, for example if your mesh is a Hut, then make a seperate Nif for the windows and import it into the Hut.nif and apply the NiAlphaProperty to the window's NiTriStrip/Shape to get and opaque Hut with transparent windows. Transparency is unaffected by the Normal Map, whose Alpha Channel only applies to Glossiness.
Here is an Opaque Hellraiser Cube:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p121/...Opaque.jpg
Here it is with transparency:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p121/...parent.jpg
And here is a Tardis with transparent windows:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p121/...Tardis.jpg

[TheImperialDragon]

Hello waerloga, welcome to Silgrad Tower! =)

:wave:

Originally on your wiki talk page:

I am experiencing difficulty with making my new landscape visible. I can only see whatever cell I am standing in in-game, when I am in my new World Space, even though I have followed the instuctions on this Wiki to Update LOD. Also my Architecure is not Visible When Distant, even though I have created the MyBuilding_far.nif and Updated Distant LOD. Either I'm doing something wrong here or there's information missing from the Wiki.

Hmm... Perhaps one of the tutorials here would be useful? I've never had to make one of those, but our current modder files have working custom distant models.

I might be able to help with the worldspace LOD problems though...

In the Data\Meshes\Landscape\LOD directory, what are the first sets of digits in your files? ( For example, Silgrad Tower uses "17323798", Oblivion uses "60"...)

And what is the ID of your worldspace? You can check it in the CS, it is usually a number like FF002A29, 0100C947, 000010B0... First two digits depend on the setup of your mod, the other six can be just about anything in hex code.

The hex code and the number should be identical (when converted from hex to decimal or decimal to hex). If they aren't, then perhaps the LOD data is in the wrong folder?