bloodmoon
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No longer active here but still creating.
Posts: 32
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Post by bloodmoon on Sept 27, 2020 14:30:27 GMT -5
Hi! I've been trying to make a shiny dress and I'm struggling with making a specular map. Yesterday I tried following this tumblr tutorial and this google doc tutorial, but some steps were confusing, and neither of them showed what the finished spec map is supposed to look like in the layers window in photoshop. I played around with it and ended up with either an extremely glossy dress or no shine at all. Those were the only tutorials I could find that used photoshop and showed how to make a spec map for your own mesh instead of an EA mesh. I used the dds plugin by intel since NVIDIA didn't work for my photoshop version. Then I followed this s4s tutorial without rgb. For the alpha channel, the background was black and the pieces of the dress were grey. I exported the spec map and the mask file as png. It showed a nicer looking subtle shine, so I went back to increase the lightness of the dress pieces, which resulted in the shine being removed completely. I reverted back to the original png and got the shine back. I didn't think much of the problem and made more color swatches for my dress, then decided to add a copy of the first swatch and delete the old version to update the thumbnail. Even though I left the spec map fully intact, the shine was completely removed when I opened the game... Here is what the files look like (imgur). Edit: I also noticed that before I copied and deleted a swatch on my dress, a necklace I downloaded from another cc creator was shiny (as it's supposed to be) but now it's not shiny at all! I even tested the necklace on other sims and it's not shiny for any of them. |
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Post by mauvemorn on Sept 27, 2020 16:07:20 GMT -5
Hi. Specular maps are not rendered on the lower graphic settings, this is not a matter of your file but how the game is coded. You should always generate minmaps
Why would you hide or remove rbg? What issues are you experiencing? Whatever is happening, it is not caused by the presence of rbg. First, in .dds files transparency is controlled by the alpha channel, it should not have a transparent background like a .png. Second, rbg layer defines what type of shine the mesh should have.
Check if you missed any step:
1). find a maxis item that has the same type of material you want yours to have, clone it, export the specular from the package, open the first file;
2). open your diffuse, reduce the image size by half;
3). select the background, create a new layer, fill the background with black, invert the selection, fill it with white. This is your mask;
4). without deselecting the current selection, create a new layer, fill it with colors sampled from the rgb of the reference. Inver and fill the background with whatever color. This is your rgb;
5). hide both layer, leave only the original, desaturate everything if it is not already, use levels to darken indentations where there should be less shine, darken the whole thing evenly to match the shade of grey like in the alpha of the reference specular, fill the background with black. This will be your alpha;
6). either put each layer in the right place or just copy-paste them in the exported files;
7). save as dxt5, with minmaps generated
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bloodmoon
Member
No longer active here but still creating.
Posts: 32
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Post by bloodmoon on Sept 27, 2020 18:28:03 GMT -5
Thanks for your reply. Turns out I did the alpha wrong before, and now the shine is applied with the right intensity. I hid the rbg layer because I noticed it would make the mask.dds become white with a black outline of the dress if I saved it in s4s and reopened the package. It would also make the sim's head, torso, pelvis, and feet glossy. I thought there was a problem with the whole rbg but I fixed it by only coloring the dress and leaving the background clear instead of coloring it green. The background is green in the reference spec map and in the tutorials so I'm not sure if this is the best way to go, but the dress is looking good now. What it looks like in s4s |
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bloodmoon
Member
No longer active here but still creating.
Posts: 32
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Post by bloodmoon on Sept 27, 2020 19:11:49 GMT -5
Update: I closed the game, made a few tweaks to the thumbnails in s4s, reopened the game, and the shine disappeared.. I didn't make any changes to the spec map and I don't know what's causing it to stop working.
Edit: I made the spec maps blank and re-imported them, which fixed that. Strange...
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Post by mauvemorn on Sept 28, 2020 5:59:59 GMT -5
If the shine appears on other parts of the body, it's the alpha of the first file. I think the problem with the mask must have been in how it was saved. Basically you can save it as dxt5 as well.
Maybe this is a new bug? Could you please share the package?
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bloodmoon
Member
No longer active here but still creating.
Posts: 32
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Post by bloodmoon on Sept 28, 2020 9:31:57 GMT -5
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Post by mauvemorn on Sept 28, 2020 13:27:56 GMT -5
I edited the specular. The shine appears ok on the highest settings. It is too shiny so you should make either rgb darker or the alpha. Here's the packageAnother thing, your dress and the reference you transferred the weights from are affected by skirt bones while the lingerie set you cloned is not. Introducing new bones can result in the distortion in that area like this. If you won't encounter it in your game, someone else using your cc might see it in theirs.  Either clone DressPanels ( made of one meshgroup, is affected by skirt bones) or remove them from all lods - Add Armature modifier unless it is already added, Assign rig; - Click on the small + button, type in skirt, select each vertex group and delete it with the big - button to the right; - Switch to Weight paint, click on Normalize all, uncheck Lock active.  |
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bloodmoon
Member
No longer active here but still creating.
Posts: 32
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Post by bloodmoon on Sept 28, 2020 16:36:10 GMT -5
I tested the edited package in my game and didn't notice much difference in the shine. Both the edited package and my original package looked like this in CAS and in all game settings. I'm aiming for a shiny leather look, but I will try different looks with the specular map. Also, I didn't see any distortion in my game but I did follow the steps for all lods. |
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