Skinning Techniques?

Unilat · Post by **Unilat** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 7:18 am

Well for a new mod that hopefully I will be able to released, I have been remodelling all of the covenant weapons. The models are very nice, however I would like to skin them nice also.

I have a sniper model that I need to be completely black, and possibly a flat black at that. I duplicated the shader tag for the sniper and have UV mapped the model to have its entirety within a black area of my bitmap. However, I've had to remove the bumps and such due to messing up the look. Yet, it changes colors to a light tan when facing certain directions and is way way too shiny.

What stem or other method should I be using to have a flat black, or at least a black that doesnt change colors.

And to let you know, my other weapon is black and tan and uv mapped properly to have the black and tan in the correct spots. But yet again, due to the shininess and weird changes based on what direction you are facing, parts turn black that arent supposed to.

Help is greatly appreciated.

AFuzySquirrel · Post by **AFuzySquirrel** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 7:23 am

well i belive the shinyness is a big problem with skinning. i believe its a problem with the UV but not sure. alot of weapons cant fiz the shinyness

Unilat · Post by **Unilat** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 7:25 am

Well thats the reason I duplicated the sniper shader. Its a rather dull weapon as well as the right color but when the base bitmap is changed and the bump removed (to prevent messed up lines) it becomes shiny.

antszy101 · Post by **antszy101** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 11:14 am

IN the shader tag meta editor, set the specularity at zero. That should help

DarkShallFall · Post by **DarkShallFall** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 2:07 pm

antszy101 wrote:IN the shader tag meta editor, set the specularity at zero. That should help

Ha! I taught you that. Also blacking out teh alpha map of the bitmap used will help on shadows.

Unilat · Post by **Unilat** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 7:24 pm

Alright I'll test this out tomorrow and get back to you on the results.

ScottyGEE · Post by **ScottyGEE** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:19 pm

Darkshallfall wrote:
antszy101 wrote:IN the shader tag meta editor, set the specularity at zero. That should help
Ha! I taught you that. Also blacking out the alpha map of the bitmap used will help on shadows.

Its the alpha map that determines the resistance to shine and light (I believe at least) in the bitmap. If you look at the MC's alpha its mostly a mix of dark Grey and light Grey (the lighter areas are the rubber). This stops him being as shiny and horrible.

So one option of course is to just make the alpha map completely white and it shouldn't really reflect.

There are other things that can determine shininess...Such as a reflection map, the stem (which you already mentioned) and bloom in a level can make some parts of a model glow slightly. (Best third thing I could think of ;p)

Unilat · Post by **Unilat** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 6:06 am

Alright, well it looks like whiting the bitmap made a difference, however when facing certain directions the lighting changes drastically on the weapon. It still looks relatively the same to me.

Could it be the stem, and if so which ones is a better matte color?

Unilat · Post by **Unilat** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 5:42 am

I think I have found the problem. I got the info from all of you a little mixed up while one said black out the alpha map, while someone else said white out the alpha map.

I will try blacking out and setting specularity to zero and inform you of the changes.

EDIT: The sniper is relatively fixed, the weapon is black and doesnt change to weird shades of light tan in certain directions. However, my grenade launcher model is still ver color-changing especially in first person where its easy to see the messed up look of it.