Here's my list:
- Virmire Survivors Non Combat Outfit Replacer:
The idea is replace the non combat outfit with my shirt mod.
Kaidan's oufit is a pain to change because he shares the same outfit as all alliance crew. This means that if you change Kaidan's outfit, all the men from the alliance crew (Normandy, Citadel..) would have the same outfit as him (included Joker and Cortez :D ), but well, is this or nothing :(. I've already put this in game and works fine.
Here's some pics showing the Normandy crew:
About Ashley's outfit, she doesn't share her outfit with anyone but the problem is this (she looks like silver surfer lol):
UPDATE: Ok, I think I fixed this "silver issue" but now the outfit looks a bit dark and the arms shine in blue, Ashley's original outfit mysteries.. The blue shine seems to be because the original outfit it's not suppose to have skin and although I removed the specular map, the shine persist. I'm so close :/..
Thanks to Goha for the help :).
Other thing I want to do along with Kaidan's outfit is return his lashes (Bioware forgot his lashes on the way... ¬¬ ) like this:
But I have a lot of issues with this... and I'm unable to add opacity to the lashes' material plus lighting issues on his face:
This is how the lashes are without opacity, white with black background. (Poor Kaidan! XD)
More things:
- Remodel the weird space between the breast and the breast itself on my shirt mod to look more like a shirt (Ashley version will have this fixed too), this space:
I'm so bad at remodeling little things with 3Ds Max without deforming it, there must be something or a tool to prevent deforming all the mesh but I'm unable to find it, I only know the basics =(.
- Finish my Modded Formal Outfit mod:
The people want this finished but it has much work and I need a lot of time for this, specially with the bones because there are some issues that I have to fix first.
- Remodel a bit the Asari Dancer Outfit for the game to upload it along with my retexture (with this I have same issues as that weird space on the shirt).
- And finally, convert all my released mods to XPS ( First the shirt mod for sure :))
Hmm, Maybe I'll need a break after this :P .
I might be of a little help. Ashley - her outfit's specular texture is a bit different than the uniform you want to implement. Open them both in Photoshop in look into the channels. You will see that while the green channel is quite similar, red and blue are quite different. Try to switch contents of the red and blue and see what comes out of it. In this moment, the mask that controls the intensity of the environment effect (this metallic shine you're seeing), is in the wrong place, thus giving the wrong information to the game engine.
ReplyDeleteProblem with Mass Effect models is that specularity is very inconsistent and varies from model to model.
With Kaidan's Lashes, similar thing - first of all, I'm very impressed that you made it working in game. Open some other lashes texture, and check for the contents of the alpha channel. It should be completely white. The brightness of the diffuse controls the visibility of the lashes. Try to put it as 32bit .tga file in the game first and see if it works, and then, try different conversions for .dds (gosh, I hate .dds).
As for the dancer outfit - I think it was supposed to be skin tight, they're not wearing underwear under that, so I don't think it needs changing, but, your call.
Ashley's non combat outfit textures are so strange! I managed all channels from the specular to test but nothing changed so I tried to investigate the diff textures from the original outfit and that was the issue!
DeleteDiff texture from the original outfit is saved as DXT5 dds the same as all specular textures from the game because it suppose to have an alpha channel. I was saving the diff texture as DXT1 dds while the original has an alpha channel which is suppose to be that "silver glow" and I had to edit it.
I wasn't expecting this was a Diffuse issue, the glow seemed a Specular or a material issue itself, here's the outfit now http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/4020/ccvm.jpg but in my opinion it seems too dark and the specular shines a bit in blue. I removed the specular but the "blue shine" persists on the arms. I think that's because the original outfit it's not suppose to have skin. I tried all possibilities with the specular map but nothing changes so this have to be a material issue from the game.
The same with Kaidan's lashes, I've tried all possibilities ( all dds types, tga..) but nothing works, it seems the lashes material doesn't recognize transparency and that's what I've to change, the worst part is Kaidan's model isn't prepared to have lashes and he has one material less than the other models and while I can add a "phantom material" as I did on the lashes, can't add "effects" with the material editor. It seems impossible but I'll try it, he deserves it !
Thanks for your help :).
Ah yes, the alpha, I thought the issue is in the specular texture, forgot about the diffuse, sorry.
DeleteYeah, I can see the shine thing. It's still the cube map being reflected on the cloth. I'd try and edit the specular texture, see which channel is responsible for visibility of that cube map, and then darken it where you don't want it (probably by switching the channels I mentioned, but now I'm not sure). But I see the skin pigment looks okay.
So, the modding thing, we can overwrite only the existing meshes/materials? No way to force-add new things?
I painted in black all the specular map for test and it doesn't work, now I can say that I hate Ashley's textures lol.
DeleteYeah, only can overwrite existing things and no way to add new. I'm thinking on attach Kaidan's lashes with his face material and add the lashes on the UV map with the face texture, maybe it works..
That may work, but I think that you would have to make the face texture much bigger, so that the lashes could be of better quality. Good luck.
DeleteAnother thing with Ash, you could try to find and paint the cube texture to black, but I have no idea if that might help or if it could affect other models in the game. It should look like this: http://i.imgur.com/Nyu74E7.png
I tried to paint the cube but nothing changes :(. Investigating through Ashley PCC file I found this http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/7137/4cs6.jpg, she seems to use that master material on the armor but it can't be painted or something like the cube chrome because it hasn't a texture and I'm unable to disable it via the PCC editor. I should ask to anyone on the ME3Explorer forum.
DeleteThanks for your help!.
Okay, now it finally got to me how these things work. Same as you can't get rid of that shiny material on Ash, I don't think you'd be able to make Kaidan's lashes work if neither his scalp or face textures support transparency. I hope I'm wrong though. But again, there's a question - all of his head meshes in ME1 and 2 have no lashes mesh, but you can clearly see he has lashes there. I don't even know how's that possible, texture kinda can't exist alone I think - there must be a mesh so the texture may be wrapped on it...
DeleteThat's interesting, when finished the shirt I should investigate it carefully. If at the end nothing works with Kaidan's lashes, I'll be so disappointed T_T.
DeleteThanks for the info :D.