newbie help with Shiny textures

[WhiteWolf]

I have browsed the site and have come across some good info on trying to make shiny textures but I am new to this and it is not really making since. If some one could spare the time to mabey answer a few of my questions or perhaps point me to a tutorial that has already been written it would be appreciated.

 

What i know: how to find and extract the textures, and how to do some basic retexturing in paintshop (im still kind of new to the program)

 

What i do not know: everything else

[Helter]

Retexturing

 

THis is prtyLizardJedi' webpage. Checkout the retexturing tutorial. It's gat pictures too. It helped me learn to use Photoshop and Kt. It includes instructions on making shiny textures.

 

 

p.s. I'm a noob too. Learned to retexture on Thursday.

[svösh]

Hi there and welcome to the forums

http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=126716 look and posts 9 and 10 I wrote this a while ago it's about alpha channels, what makes textures shiny is replacing a % of opacity of the actual image and using the game shaders to give the shine

 

Here is one one using layer effects to add a new texture I believe there is a similar function in psp 7 or 8

http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=130749

 

I encourage you to take a look at this sticky thread as well

http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=124284 Do you Want to mod SW-KotOR? Then Start here.

 

And my good friend darth333 wrote this fantastic guide http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=129789 Guide for the newbie: how to install mods. /What tools do I need to start modding?

 

Now I’m not bashing prtyLizardJedi 's tut but please do not think that is how to properly retexture, in fact it far more accurate to call it a beginners guide to re colouring that is one way only... and I 'll point out not exactly the right way. First learn the tools use selections to mask off areas cut your image up in to many [ properly named layers ] ex right arm would be named right arm torso would be named torso it will help keep things organized. I used 89 layers on my mech malak , so you can bet each screw and rivet are name right or I would go insane. The best way if you don’t' have any training in psp or photoshop is use a search engine look for tutorials on using psp then aply the same things you have learned to retexturing , once you have a good grasp on the tools you can tackle any job.

 

Finally when you get to skinning your Armour, or items they have to de saved as 32 bit .tga with alpha channels. Drop them in the override dir \ of kotor to test

 

Her are some good tuts to help you get started

 

http://www.putertutor.net/paint/psplinks.htm great info on using the program

 

http://psptips.com/ Psp tips and tricks

 

http://www.grafx-design.com/psp_tut.html Psp tuts

 

http://www.sumrallworks.com/freebies/buttonhole/psp/tutorials/link2g.htm

 

http://www.state-of-entropy.com/

 

http://www.aestheticweb.com/tutorials.html

 

hope this helps. Any more questions pm me I’ll try my best to help you

 

svösh

[Tanesh]

Hmm, I read the texturing tutorial and this thread: http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=126716

I have the same problem Rivahl mentioned; I can't save tga files with alpha channels. I tried it with Photoshop 7.0 and my old Corel Photo-Paint 8. With Photoshop, I can only save the file as a copy, but whatever I try, nothing changes in the game. The texture simply stays "un-shiney". And I have added the txi file. With Photo-Paint, I can't even save a copy as tga. It simply isn't possible to save a tga file with an alpha channel using Corel Photo-Paint.

I looked at the some files which already have the "shiney" textures, like the saber hilts, and noticed that they appear transparent (actually, they're almost invisible) in Photoshop, but without alpha channel. I don't know if that's important or not.

*sigh* Is there someone who can help me, please?

[svösh]

Sure the problem you’re having is unfortunately due to Photoshop 7 's stupid build. It doesn’t handle .tga with alpha channels easily and it's garbage with .png file format just ask any jka skinners out there. I used photoshop 6 and or cs aka 8 for kotor skins there are no hassles.

 

I must point this out but before saving make sure you have only one extra channel in your channels and it ‘s named Alpha1.

 

Now when saving the 32 bit .tga in PS 7 try saving it as a copy then manually remove the copy part of the name after you have saved it . To be sure the alpha channel is still there reopen the tga to check.

 

I had ps 7 and removed it because of how it treated tga’s it was like pulling teeth to get a .tga saved with the alpha channel. With PS cs and PS 6 it’s a breaze

 

I have the answer you seek if only I checked a search engine awhile ago sigh*

http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/2c21a.htm?code=TA

Now I’m not implying you have a warez copy of ps 7, but if you do…. Use the second option to dl the .tga plugin from the site upgrading to 7.01 is a bit of a pain and not really worth the dl.

 

Here is the link for the working .tga plugin

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/thankyou.jsp?ftpID=1544&fileID=1478

 

1. Make sure Photoshop is not running.

2. Download the archive file that contains the Targa plug-in and

its associated ReadMe file.

3. Use WinZip or PKZIP to extract the contents of the archive file.

4. Locate the Photoshop 7.0\Plug-Ins\File Formats folder.

5. Drag the extracted Targa plug-in into the File Formats folder.

6. In the resulting dialog box, click OK to overwrite the existing

Targa plug-in.

7. Launch Photoshop 7.0.

 

I think this will help a few people here

 

svösh

[Tanesh]

Thank you, svösh, you saved my day! I could kiss you for your help. Of course it has to be the Photoshop version I have that makes problems.

Now my bright, rainbow-colored test robe is going to get a new shiney touch ....

[svösh]

Lol I’m just glad I could help you out.

 

svösh

[Achilles]

Originally posted by Tanesh

I could kiss you for your help.

 

Hopes that at least one of you is a female.

[Tanesh]

I am.

But now I have another problem: Although I added the txi file according to the tutorial, it doesn't seem to work correctly. Uh, how to explain? In some of my savegames, nothing changed. I just saw the texture without the "metal shining". But when I loaded a save on the Ebon Hawk, every part that should be shiny was just transparent or even invisible. I know such things happen if you forget the txi file (I had this problem once with a saber hilt). But I added it and checked the entry and the file name; it should work. I tried it with textures which have already the shiny look, i.e. Canderous' clothes. I was able to made the whole thing "shiny", but it doesn't work with the texture where I have to add an extra txi file.

 

Edit: Nevermind, I've found the solution here: http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=130372

Just in case someone has the same problem.

[svösh]

And i'm not

 

What file are you editing, some models don’t have a shader associated with them, so even a .txi won’t do… you have to edit the appearance.2da You will have to change the envmap field / node from default to CM_Baremetal for that model you are using

 

Note if you do this some things like the exo armour will look really bad on that model only because it uses a different shader CM _bright

 

CM_Baremetal is the staple shader in the game, unfortunately all the shaders in the game are hard coded in so the only way to get new shader’s is by overriding another like I did with my re colouered CM_Baremetal shader I named as CM_MANUN on the Revan Redemption Robes, a few of mav’s saber hilts, and a few of Seps saber hilts. It’s only used twice in the game and the shader didn’t change the space suite and environmental suites to much and if you copy it rename it to CM_Baremetal every thing is extra shiny and the sith uniforms, sword blades, saber hilts look really cool.

 

hope this helps.

 

svösh

[Tanesh]

Yes, thank you. I've found the solution in the thread I've mentioned in my Edit. It was just bad luck that my test object was a robe and you have to edit the appearance.2da, too. *cough* My dark jedi robes are rainbow-colored now. But that's just for testing where the different body parts of the texture are.

I changed the envmap field for Juhani and it worked. Brightly colored, shiny dark jedi robes for her.