How do I get a "metal" effect?

[Colja]

I am wondering how do I get a reflective surface effect like the ones on the sith armor and other metal items, I want to give my serpent sith character a "slimy" look.......Help o great modders!!!!

[Seprithro]

what program are you using? and what model is this guy?

[svösh]

If you extract the files with KT and tcp2tga you will see what shader corresponds with the texture file

 

For example malak. Bandon, reven, and the sith solder, armour all use the

envmaptexture CM_Baremetal shader if you want to make bandon look like a sith solder all you have to do is go to the channels and use levels on the alpha channel crank it to black and all you will see in game is the shader in game exactly like the sith solders.

 

 

Now I have been testing a few thing and one of which was to add a little detail to bastila’s default clothing unfortunately it will not work on her. For some reason if you take a look at little old bastila she appears semitransparent that is because she was supposed to have a shader associated with her texture but the devs never made one. The alpha is still there and maybe you have noticed the she has two holes in her hands….

Any way try as I will I can not get any sader effects for bastilla so I made a new alpha channel cranked it to white and now she is solid like she should be.

 

If you want slimy I think the selkath shader would work best if it will work at all?

 

 

---------------------------------

bumpyshinytexture

CM_SpecMap

 

----------------------------------------

 

you could try this copy and past the above text (without the dotted lines) in to notepad and then save it the same name as your texture for your head. And make sure you use .txi as the extension drop that puppy in your overrides and give it a try. Make sure your texture has an alpha channel not completely white or it will not work. The best way I have found to make alphas is to copy one of the Red, Green, or Blue channels red tends to pick up high lights nicely. Next open levels

ctrl +L and on the bottom slider drag the black point over to the white point a number of 213 is usually good.

 

Like I said though some texture will not work as shader in the game you have to try it out

I hope this helps, and I hope it’s not like bastila’s texture * grumble

 

Edit: problem solved thanks to Seprithro and a quick edit to the appearance.2da

 

Any more questions let me know svösh

[Seprithro]

svosh to get that "baremetal shader on bastillia is simple, open up the apperance 2da scroll down to line 4 i think, tab over to evmap it's close to end, and replace default with cm_baremetal i think check against sithsoldier to be sure, save drop in override, and there u go a shinny B-outch

[svösh]

thanks Seprithro sweet i'v never gone inside the apperance 2da

 

Damn now i have to rebuild that inticate alpha channel i just trashed yesterday oh well .. lol ctrl + left click my layer make alpha invert and done.

 

Thanks again

[Colja]

I am using the bald white ming lookin' mofo, what is he under in appearance.2da?

[Colja]

Thanks guys for helping me resolve that, and yes the

CM_SpecMap did work but the effect isn't like the selkath. It looks pretty much the same as the baremetal effect, no bumps or real "texture". Any thoughts?

[svösh]

Thanks guys for helping me resolve that, and yes the

CM_SpecMap did work but the effect isn't like the selkath. It looks pretty much the same as the baremetal effect, no bumps or real "texture". Any thoughts?

 

 

If you look at the origanl texture of the the selkath it kt you will see the shader uses, another file to get the bump effect N_Selkath01b, this is the buumpmap texture. For your texture to appear bumpy and slimy use the shader as I have copied it below in your case what you want is a shader file for each of your transition heads. What ever the name of the tga file is you have to have a corresponding txi file to go with it. You have already made those I think so just copy the text below and save each one. Next you are going to open each of your head textures and make a bumpmap for them to see what the devs did extract N_Selkath01b, All that you have to do is apply an emboss filter >stylize > emboss..

Play with the settings I found that an angle of 139º , 1 pixel in hight, and an amout of 81% will replicate the original if you have a version of photoshop before 8 the results will be gray not peach. Not to worry bump mapping only uses tones of gray anyways. Save each of these file as the same as the originals name but add a b to the end of the name.

 

 

bumpyshinytexture CM_SpecMap

bumpmaptexture N_Selkath01b (use this But change N_Selkath01b to PMHA03b and so on for each one… )

 

Change it respectively for each of your files if I left anything out or you don’t understand pm me or send me your files and i will make the shaders and bumpmaps for you.

 

svösh