Specular Highlights?

[sirherrbatka]

and on blog

[PeterBitt]

I will post some more pics tomorrow

@PeterBitt: I added specular mapping, meaning you can make certain parts shiny and others not so shiny. Use the alpha channel of the diffuse texture to control this (alpha value of 1 = shiny).

materials.zip

Great! But Alpha channel of diffuse map? Not normal map? We kinda need the alpha channel of the diffuse texture for transparency or maybe I understood you wrong.

[scrawl]

Alpha channel of the normal map will be used for parallax later.

We kinda need the alpha channel of the diffuse texture for transparency

Alpha blending has to be explicitely enabled in the nif, so if that is not used, we can abuse the alpha channel for something else.

[PeterBitt]

I might be wrong but arent parralax maps the same as normal maps, just in real 3d?
I imagined that it simply needed a normal map wich is then used as parralax map.

If not, how can we add specular maps when we need the alpha channel for transparency?

EDIT: Also, what would be the filename extension you would suggest to use for normal maps?
"_n", "_nrm" or something else?

[scrawl]

A normal map just includes a direction vector. For a parallax effect, you also need height information, which is usually stored in the alpha channel.
That's right, specular maps combined with alpha blending aren't possible yet. We'll need to use an additional specular texture for those in the future.

I'd suggest _n for a pure normal map and _nh if it contains height information in the alpha channel.

The reason normal maps aren't "detected" automatically at the moment is that checking if a resource exists is very costly (at least with the current resource code). I haven't yet investigated in detail if we could mitigate this somehow.
The resource system redesign in Ogre 2.0 would probably help, but that is a long way off.

[PeterBitt]

Thanks again, now I really know everything I need to know.

I am currently busy normal- an specular-mapping the whole of Ald Velothi for showcase purposes.
Already had to edit 113 meshes while its only 34 textures ... I think after Ald Velothi I will better wait for that automated normal map detection

[sirherrbatka]

Try to do it well, We shall use it in our dark arts of PR

[PeterBitt]

Maybe this video is of use for your dark arts: Normal Maps & Speculars
Should I post this on bethesda forums thread?

Here are a few new pics: http://imgur.com/a/7dlBT#0



Yes I know, the normal maps are still to strong
Keep in mind that this is all vanilla textures (except for the face), I guess some high res replacers might look more impressive in close ups. Also its all just generated normal maps, I am partially not happy with them.
On the Ordinator armor you can see that I also used specular maps to get rid of reflections on the clothing.
I am braindead from all those mesh edits, I might have better results another day.

[Mistahtokyo]

Could you perhaps post some before and after shots? The vanilla textures are so blurry, I'm having trouble seeing what exactly is different in these images. Not saying they're bad, just that the vanilla textures (compounded with my crappy eyesight) make the effect hard to see.

[scrawl]

That looks incredible. You just made my day