Glossy Shiny Armor Question

[Lando Griffin]

I wanted to add about 10 more armors to my armor pack. I got tired of using the mandalorian battle armor and the assualt armor, I want to make a new version of the heavy power armor, cassus fetts, the heavy battle armor its the first battle armor the mercs always wear it. But anyways I want to know how I can make the armor glossy and shiny, I use gimp and i notice that all the armor I reskined have this blocks on them, so im guesin that the blocks make the armor shiny. Can someone help?

[ChAiNz.2da]

Glossiness of armor is determined by the strength of it's alpha channel. Most heavy & medium armors use a shader. Most commonly "CM_Baremetal".

 

This is the shader that's responsible for giving it's gloss. The higher your alpha channel, the less light of the shader comes through (meaning less shine)...

 

By adjusting and manipulating your apha channel, you can determine what shines and how bright the shine gets...

 

When dealing with the alpha channel layer here's the simple jists of it:

 

Black = Uber Shiny

White = No Shine

 

[Prime]

I added some shininess to my clone and stormtrooper armours. It is pretty easy to adjust the alpha channel. But make sure that you have a .txi file so that it knows to make it shiny and not transparent. Just post here if you get stuck.

[Lando Griffin]

SO all i need is the texture file and i make my armors dark.I once tried makin the mandalorian battle armor this dark dark blue but then i got this gold shiny armor, like the darth vader when it wasnt fixed. But anyways, do i use any setting in Gimp to bring the glossy shine or i just use .txi

[ChAiNz.2da]

SO all i need is the texture file and i make my armors dark.I once tried makin the mandalorian battle armor this dark dark blue but then i got this gold shiny armor, like the darth vader when it wasnt fixed. But anyways, do i use any setting in Gimp to bring the glossy shine or i just use .txi

No. You'll need to adjust the Alpha Channel...

 

the actual color of the armor doesn't matter, but your Alpha channel is only in "grayscale" meaning it will range from Black to White...

 

Solid white on an alpha will basically "block" any light from the shader to shine through your texture... shades of grey to black acts as a "valve" allowing only certain percaentages of the shader's light to come through....

 

I'm not familiar with GIMP, so I'm not sure what all you'll have to do in order to adjust the Alpha channel strength.

 

the .txi file is basically telling the game what type of shader to use...

 

You can open notepad and make this simply by pasting this line in a blank document:

 

envmaptexture CM_Baremetal

xbox_downsample 256

 

Save the document in ANSI (use the Save As.. function) and name it the same as your armor's texture file using the ".txi" extension rather than .tga or .txt

[Lando Griffin]

I made a new armor out of the Casus Fetts armor, I colored it dark purple, the clothes was black, and I kept the lime colored lines. I put it in the override with the .txi and it came out dull. No gloss or anything. So I darkened it, with soft light, and it still came out dull. How do i use the shader, is there a setting like color,dark light,soft light,burn, or something.

[Jeff]

You just have to copy the

envmaptexture CM_Baremetal

xbox_downsample 256

into the notepad document, save it as "texturename.txi" without the quotes, and it should work... You must have been doing something wrong.

[Lando Griffin]

okay, i realized the txi was still a word document so i borrowed a txi from another armor mod that works. And my armor came out looking like this gold shiny armor, I then used notepad and it still came out the gold shiny armor. I wrote exactly what you said with out the quotes.

[T7nowhere]

you probably need to lighten the Alpha channel on the texture. White=no shine, Black=shiny( in other words if the alpha channel is all black or almost black then all you will see in game is the CM_Baremetal shader.)

[Lando Griffin]

I lightened the armor sense it must have been too dark, It came out dull , so i looked at some other mods with armors, they all have squares in them, and those armors come out glossy and shiny, even if you didnt put the txi it still became shiny. Its only with gimp too, i have paintshoppro 7 and you cant see those blocks in the armor. Does anybody know about this.

[90SK]

The squares are the default texture when there isn't anything there in gimp. Total transparency (or "alpha"). So, if you can see the squares, it means your skin is semi transparent. KotOR fills in transparency with whatever shader is applied.

 

You can adjust the alpha channels of your skin to make it semi transparent (I work with gimp, which has an opacity meter in the Layers section, so I don't know all that much about alpha channels in other programs).

 

Svösh has a tutorial on how to manage alpha channels in Photoshop here, if you have it.

 

If you're working with gimp, feel free to send me a PM if you have any questions about it.

[Lando Griffin]

I use Gimp, and how do I adjust the alpha channels to make it semi transparent?

[Lando Griffin]

Okay. Thanks guys, thanks alot. I tried it again and it came out glossy and shiny, I didnt notice it the last time because I've been working with the Old Mandalorians for a month, and the Mandalorians are blindingly shiny, and same with the Mandalore armor too. Thanks guys!