Help request: making handmaidens robe really white

[Flashblade]

Hello,

 

I'm quite new to this so bear with me . As the topic tells I want to make the jedi robe of handmaiden pearly white. Everybody says the robe is white but it really isn't. it is a light grey and I really don't like the color much. using kotor tool I extracted the texture file and tried to make it white using photoshop. it worked to a point but still a very light grey remains and increasing the brightness further just destroys the details of the texture. In kotor tool I discovered something very interesting. I looked at the textures of the handmaiden cloth and the jedi robe and they appear equally bright in the viewer, but look much different in game. So there must be something else I am missing. I would be very greatful if somebody could tell me what this is.

 

Thx in advance

 

Flashblade

[General Kenobi]

Try doing one layer in photoshop to desaturate it and another to adjust the contrast back up to see the details again. If not just hand paint them on another layer and blend or blur them to blend in with the underlying layer. If her robes are already gray you should be able to use the brightness/contrast to finish it off to bright white like you want.

 

Hope this helps...

[ChAiNz.2da]

Just a word of warning when dealing with whites. Try not to go absolute white (255). Ambient lighting of the game will reflect really bad and pretty much seer out your eyeballs

 

When using Levels (in Photoshop) set your min/max values to Black = 16, Whites = 235

 

Mid-range slider can go from anywhere to 1.0 - 2.0 depending on what part of the texture you're adjusting.

 

If you're losing details when you up your white levels, you can use your Dodge & Burn tools to "put them back" just be careful of the strength. I tend to use strokes of only about 5-10% strength and just re-do over and over till I get the shading I'm looking for.

 

For other shading, when dealing with whites, try not to use absolute black. Use shades of grey, baby blue and pink. These tend to naturally complement the white portions and the ambient light won't affect them as bad as max valued colors.

 

Darth Melignous tip on desaturating is a good one to use. You can place the desaturated layer over the portion you're adjusting and bring down it's opacity. From there, either blend to use it as your detail, or use it as a guide for the Dodge and Burn tools...

 

@Darth Melignous

It's VERY refreshing to see another Photoshop adept here. I've seen your work and am a big fan (as well as all of the skinning help you've provided here lately). I find myself learning new techniques all the time with all the talent here at the forums and it's good to see yet another PS user we can learn from. I've been working in Photoshop since version 2, so I can understand & appreciate what all it takes to learn this program's "ins & outs". It seems to me that you know your stuff and look forward to other techniques you bring to the Forums

[Flashblade]

Thank you both for your assistance, but I really think that is not the problem. I have experimented a little more and made some screenshots and I think this will help to see the problem.

 

First screenshot shows handmaiden and my char wearing the robe. as you can see the garments of handmaiden are white as snow while the robe is a very light grey.

 

 

Now lets have a look at both textures. first the robe texture:

 

 

second the texture of the cloth:

 

 

the robe and the cloth are really not that different in color and brightness but look totally different in game.

 

after that I made an experiment and applied the cloth texture to the robe, after all the robe should come out just as white as the cloth

 

 

as you can see it doesn't. I know it looks weird but the white parts should be white but they remain grey. that leads me to believe that the grey is hardcoded elsewhere and that is what I need to change.

[Nasadus]

I have a similar problem.I have made/re-skinned these robes (Click Here).

When i equip them on a female character they all look different.Instead of the white parts beign white they are gray.There are some other things wrong with them aswell.And i can't seem to find the files for female specific robes.Both male and female use the same robes but they look different on a female then how i intended them to be.

 

This only happens with these robes.The first ones that i did look the same on both male and female as you can see here (Male Robes Female Robes)

 

Anyone know what going on?

Any help would be appreciated.

[AJL]

I don't know if it is the same thing but when I try to modify those

Knight/Master robe skins their color counts always seems to drop

to 256 or something like that.. (no problems when I modify those

jedi or padawan robes or face textures or...)

[General Kenobi]

Originally posted by ChAiNz.2da

@Darth Melignous

It's VERY refreshing to see another Photoshop adept here. I've seen your work and am a big fan (as well as all of the skinning help you've provided here lately). I find myself learning new techniques all the time with all the talent here at the forums and it's good to see yet another PS user we can learn from. I've been working in Photoshop since version 2, so I can understand & appreciate what all it takes to learn this program's "ins & outs". It seems to me that you know your stuff and look forward to other techniques you bring to the Forums

 

Thanks, yep been using Photoshop for work forever It feels. It amazes me that for what I do I use it prob. 6-8 hrs a day and still have not learned it all. Do you think anyone ever "masters" every aspect of Pshop? It amazes me that you can use it for years and still learn something new about the program every day.

 

I like to help cause I know when I start putting out "full mods" that put a unique item in KOTOR II rather than "altering" the existing ones (much easier LOL) I would want someone to help me. Guess it's that !@#$# stubborn jedi streak that wants to help, and here I"m supposed to be sith....lol

My Mods Site

[General Kenobi]

Originally posted by Nasadus

I have a similar problem.I have made/re-skinned these robes (Click Here).

When i equip them on a female character they all look different.Instead of the white parts beign white they are gray.There are some other things wrong with them aswell.And i can't seem to find the files for female specific robes.Both male and female use the same robes but they look different on a female then how i intended them to be.

 

This only happens with these robes.The first ones that i did look the same on both male and female as you can see here (Male Robes Female Robes)

 

Anyone know what going on?

Any help would be appreciated.

I think it was ChainZ or RedHawke that told me the other day on a similar topic that the robes names are the same except for the M or F part of the name. So what I did was when someone pointed out that the robes only worked for a female character (I didn't know they were separate) I simply copied the file and made the "F" for female in the game to "M" for the male robes and it worked for both then.

As for the gray/white thingie, maybe its actually something in-game that says "blinding white" = very light (don't put your eyes out) kinda thing. I"m not saying there is but I do know of other games that include this in code. (heard my codding buddies talk about it) The idea in that game in particular was very bright white caused a "flicker" on the screen that would cause some to have seisures (spelling lol). So the gamers included a code file that said basically "anything white is light gray".

 

I've not messed with the handmaidens outfit but will be glad to do to the files and see if I can get them do do what you want if it will help you...

[Flashblade]

Your idea about the matter could be right, if there were not numerous examples of white. atris' robe, attons ribbed jacket, jedi robes, handmaiden cloth etc. they all have a real white so I still can't grasp why there is this problem with this robe.

 

I however would be thankful if you would try to make it work. I must admit I am quite out of practice with photoshop .

 

the texture is PFBN09.tpc