Texture Map Help - (CO, SMDI, AS, NOHQ)

[Airwolf 50]

I have searched and searched and have been unable to find a straight forward answer to this question.

 

I'm working on retexturing and need to make new texture map files as i'm changing the RVMAT values.

 

Some of these files I have, some I need to create, but I do not have proper information on what the CO, SMDI, AS, and NOHQ files are, or how you create them. For example If i run the 2 specular map filters in texview, I get the red and green textures, but not the pink one.

 

Could someone either help me out with explaining these, or point me to the right guide?

 

Thank you,

[PuFu 4600]

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/TexView_2_Manual

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=4202

[renehasp@gmail.com 1]

Yea I read the two links and they aren't that helpful. I am in the same boat as the original poster. I did find an awesome app called Substance painter and it exports a whole bunch of the different layers for RVMAT. However I too am stuck as when I export them they do not have the correct settings for Textview to read them. I too would love to see a tutorial and step by step instructions.

 

Thanks

-Rene

[Jackal326 1181]

CO is your basic texture, created in Photoshop or whatever your preferred texture editing program is.

NOHQ is the normal map - most likely baked in 3DS Max or similar. There are filter (plugins for Photoshop) to do it manually from the texture (NVIDIA do them somewhere on their website, but the results WILL need tweaking).

SMDI is an overall shine/gloss map. The best way I've found to make these is to greyscale the _CO, and adjust the brightness/contrast to make any areas I want to be shiny to become lighter, and any matte areas as dull as possible without losing any texture depth. I then overlay a new layer (filled with R:209 G:24 B:209) with 80% opacity. Within this layer I will also darken areas that are to be matte. Sometimes if fine detail such as scratches need to be highlighted I will then overlay the grey-scaled _CO on top with a lighten blend filter.

AS (otherwise known as Ambient Occlusion or AO) can also be baked in Max or similar 3D Editing software.

 

As I only work on weapons, these are the only formats I have experience with (as they're the only ones used by weapons as a general rule), so don't expect any help with any other file-types.

I would also recommend you check out the Texture Naming Rules page on the BI Wiki. Essentially all you need to do is simply save the files as xxx_co.tga, xxx_nohq.tga etc (making sure they're 24bit TGAs, or 32bit if you're creating a_ca.tga so the Alpha Channel information is saved), and TexView will do the rest of the work when saving as a .paa - you don't need to apply any filters yourself in TexView unless you want to preview what the end result will look like. However, it usually a lot faster to just save the file as .paa and then open it, rather than wait ages for TexView to manually apply the filter one pixel at a time.

[six_ten 208]

Yea I read the two links and they aren't that helpful. I am in the same boat as the original poster. I did find an awesome app called Substance painter and it exports a whole bunch of the different layers for RVMAT. However I too am stuck as when I export them they do not have the correct settings for Textview to read them. I too would love to see a tutorial and step by step instructions.

What are your specific questions?  I've never heard of Substance Painter -- I make my own textures, so I can help you with getting them in game, but nothing to do with that software.

[scotg 204]

For SMDI, I find it easier to work with each channel separately, in grayscale. In photoshop, I'll create a layer group specifically for specular, and another for gloss. Usually, I try to keep the gloss channel as low detail as possible, with broad areas of different shades of gray. In my experience, this helps to prevent texel clumping - a side effect of converting to DXT formats, which PAA is in this case. When I am satisfied with both images, I'll create a new FINAL layer filled with white. Ctrl+Shift+C each group then paste it into the appropriate channel of the FINAL (gloss goes in blue, spec goes in green, red channel is max). Saving for web, PNG-24, tends to cut down texel clumping a bit as well. You can save PNG files as PAAs in TexView2, and it will do the final conversion.

 

I'm sure this will help since you are getting acquainted with texturing, even though it's more than what you asked about.

[renehasp@gmail.com 1]

Hi six_ten and scotg.

Would one of you be so kind and do a step by step YouTube video so I can follow along. I too have photoshop but I don't get the whole keeping everything in separate channels and the combining it..

Thanks so much.

-Rene

[renehasp@gmail.com 1]

Or can you attach one psd example so I can get an idea of the different channels before it got converted to paa. Or do you think I can grab this from any pbo and reverse engineer it to see how it was put together?

[PuFu 4600]

this part of the forums are NOT for teaching/tutoring basic toolset skills (photoshop included). 

 

i made an exception and made you a PSD though, it is quick and dirty mind you, but the scope is to understand the channels use:

http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=39756704166405115993

 

I have used blending tools options per layer or group, it is easier to keep track of things for me. 

[EricJ 760]

I use xNormal for Photoshop which does the _As and _nohq. Here's what I use generally for SMDI files (courtesy of Warlord554):

 

    Arma 3 SMDI (Specular)
    
    - Red Channel always 100% White

    - Green Channel (Is the "metallic" channel. The whiter the channel, the more metallic an object       will be). Put scratches, and grunge into this channel. The more metallic you want, the whiter the       scratches are. Adding standard black grunge will give you some actual metal depth, and looks alot       better than purely adding it to the diffuse. If you want to do it short and sweet, then hit [CTRL       + L] inside photoshop, and adjust the levels until you get a dark grey object. This channel will            make the biggest ingame result, as it also controls how much shine a face has. Think of it like       this, the whiter this channel is, the more "chrome" it is

    - Blue Channel is the gloss. Short and sweet is about 60-80% white. But you can get creative and             add white to areas of your model you want to have more gloss. (Think of a laminated, waxed wood             panel floor)


    *Notes*
    - Make sure your base diffuse doesn't have pixel artifacts when converting it to a smdi, these will       showup ingame and look terrible. Rule of thumb is make your diffuse a "solid" color, no "pores"       in the paint so to speak

    - Always remember you can go back into this map and make channel adjustments until you are happy.
        And it takes time to produce great results, so be patient and practice
 

[scotg 204]

  *Notes*

    - Make sure your base diffuse doesn't have pixel artifacts when converting it to a smdi, these will       showup ingame and look terrible. Rule of thumb is make your diffuse a "solid" color, no "pores"       in the paint so to speak

    - Always remember you can go back into this map and make channel adjustments until you are happy.

        And it takes time to produce great results, so be patient and practice

 

I have this problem frequently: I call it texelizing, from the word texel which in DXT format is a quad of pixels using 4 averaged (?) colors within the quad to come up with optimized results... sometimes the difference is too insignificant, which results in the blocky artifacts.

You confused me here, though. I don't understand what you mean by "make your diffuse a 'solid' color, no 'pores' in the paint so to speak."

 

I've noticed in PS that there will be pores in a channel. For example if I make a gray layer #4e4e4e, it should be 4e solid in each channel. This is often not the case in all channels. It might be solid in Red and Blue, but in Green (this is all arbitrary for the example), it might show up as 4f with some 4c pixels scattered evenly. Are these the "pores" you meant?