Need pointers on a texture issue

[praedor]

Texture modding has always been my bugaboo.  Sometimes I sail through it but then, with certain difficult characters (EDI being dominant) I run into issues due to the weird material settings and effects unique to her character.  In this case I am able to get EDI's new face to render just fine in the game but am having all kinds of problems with her scalp/hair/eyes.

Here is what I intend to make her look like:



And this is how she looks when I run the current mod in the game:




At first her sections were mis-mapped to the wrong materials (eyes were mapped to her scalp) and that rendered "correctly" on her hair and scalp but as soon as I direct it to the correct material, her specific scalp/hair texture, I get this uniform grey-ish render.  Her spec map for the face is fine, as you can see, and I duplicated the spec for her scalp from an old EVA-EDI mod that gave her EVA's skin/look.  I'm assuming this is tied to an alpha channel issue but am not certain (it has been too long since I last messed with this stuff I'm even less certain now than I was when first working on this). Her eyes also will only render white if I try to give them any color other than the default black/grey.   

She's done and ready to go EXCEPT for the scalp texture issue.  Unless someone can clue me in on how/if I can get her eyes to take a color, then I'll put her eye textures back to default EDI.

Her face and scalp textures (diff and spec) can be had here: www.mediafire.com/folder/8vynsbvmkqtou/EDI-Tricia-Mod

Anyone have a clue to offer on this?

[bullobrien]

Is it possible that the problem lies in the model itself and not the texture? Some setting embedded in the model? When I have experimented with putting textures on EDI's robotic body it they never seemed to be right no matter what I tried to do with the SPEC or alpha channels.

[praedor]

I'm pretty certain that there's nothing odd with EDI's mesh model. I don't do anything to the models except make sure normals are all pointing the correct way, plus the texture does apply if, as I mentioned, I mis-apply the eye texture to the scalp. I have to assume that this means there's something about the scalp texture to make it render oddly vs eye texture and the only thing that comes off as possible, given how the actual diff looks in GIMP or other editor, is the alpha (which can be confusing).

I've been hoping to avoid starting from scratch with alphas and running through various iterations (no alpha, black alpha, white alpha, etc) on the Diff or SPEC so I don't end up with a texture mess at the end and have to remake the pccs from scratch again. If no one can put forth a target for me to start with, then it will have to be going through all possibilities which means more headache, time, and effort.

[giftfish]

FYI, GIMP does not handle alpha properly, and it handling of R/G/B channels is questionable when it comes to being able to see a true representation of the data being edited. The issue with alpha especially apparent with DXT5 textures that store data in the alpha channel. Ottemis can explain it better than I can, but there are absolutely textures that cannot be edited by GIMP if you want a usable texture.

Looking at the picture of EDI in game, I'd say her face isn't being handled properly. At least not if it's supposed to look like the image above. The top image looks like skin. In game her face looks like bronze metal. Seems like a spec and alpha issue to me, but I can't provide any further advice on how to fix it.

[praedor]

giftfish: I'm not sure I'd say her face "isn't being handled properly". Unfortunately, the materials for her face/body are rather unique to her character vs others. It is shiny/glossy and glowy deep in the settings and that makes it hard (for me at any rate) to get her skin to render like other characters...unless modding and ME3Explorer has advanced to the point of being able to do full material swaps from other pccs? I've always wished I could simply copy over the materials from one of the other human characters into EDI's pccs so the materials would behave like everyone else's.

[giftfish]

Mar 2, 2017 23:20:32 GMT praedor said:

giftfish: I'm not sure I'd say her face "isn't being handled properly". Unfortunately, the materials for her face/body are rather unique to her character vs others. It is shiny/glossy and glowy deep in the settings and that makes it hard (for me at any rate) to get her skin to render like other characters...unless modding and ME3Explorer has advanced to the point of being able to do full material swaps from other pccs? I've always wished I could simply copy over the materials from one of the other human characters into EDI's pccs so the materials would behave like everyone else's.

Materials aren't a problem, you just clone new ones in. You have to edit some binary references, though.

[praedor]

Ah. I have been away for a while. I'll try and clone in some new materials for EDI and quit having to fight the issue with spec.

I suppose I'll need to go to the old forums to search for the correct cloning tutorial?  I found yours on cloning textures for new pcc files in DLC but find nothing specific to materials yet...will it be the same as cloning meshes?  I should preface this by saying I have found an OLD tutorial by Largon on how he made his original EDI-Eva "swap" of texture/materials (all via hex editing) and, in fact, it was those mods that I used in trying to get mine working.  His is an old mod that was problematic to apply (as a *.mod) and then it didn't work...you see the result in my images above.  I used edited pccs based on Largon's work to do what I have but it never worked properly.  I am hoping that progress has been made in material cloning so that it isn't something restricted to within pccs but also BETWEEN pccs (so I could clone the face, scalp, hair, body materials for Ashley or Kaiden into EDI's pccs and use them).  Are there still strict limits on how cloning of materials can be done?

[giftfish]

praedor -- You should start by reading the old release notes for the toolset revs on the old forum. Sir was fairly thorough with them.

[praedor]

I'll assume, for now, that this is progress. Giftfish, I started reading Sir's release notes from when s/he began and then started playing with package editor to import Ashley materials into the EDI 00 pccs. I then reassigned EDI eye, face, scalp, and body material to those of Ashley's, autotoc'd and started the game.



First win: game didn't crash or go into infinite load when I entered the Normandy bridge.

Second "win" is conditional: I started conversation with EDI and this is how she now appears (no glow, no shine even though without textures).





Textures no longer assigned...but I assume I'm still missing some in-package edits or assignments.

[giftfish]

praedor -- I've gotten that result when I forgot to repoint the materials to the proper textures in Meshplorer.