HELP! Bumpmap assignment?

[Jorak Uln]

Hi, 

need a bit help here - basically im trying to  assign a custom bumpmap to the game, but it doesnt apply to the texture:

for example, when i add the  needed txi files to Manaan Hraekert rift groundtexture LMA_ floor01s the bumpmap is not recognised (floor tex = transparent for now to see the bumpmap clearly)

So ive downloaded MDLedit v 1.0.9 Beta to edit the model, but ive zero experience with it. 

the tga & txi structure in override looks like this:

LMA_ floor01s.tga

LMA_ floor01s.txi (

envmaptexture 
wateralpha 
bumpyshinytexture CM_asith
bumpmaptexture LMA_floor01sB )

LMA_ floor01sB.tga

LMA_ floor01sB.txi (

envmaptexture 
wateralpha 

isbumpmap 1
bumpmapscaling 2

)

Im glad for any help you could give me on this!

 

 

[ebmar]

For the diffuse/LMA_ floor01s.TXI, you can leave out both envmaptexture and wateralpha [unless you needed that, but I don't see why], and use only these two --

bumpyshinytexture CM_asith
bumpmaptexture LMA_floor01sB

as well as the normal-map/LMA_ floor01sB.TXI, just leave it like this --

isbumpmap 1
bumpmapscaling 2

See if that changes anything. Though more importantly is how you setup the normal-map. You'd be better export it as 24/32bpp uncompressed-TPC format using tga2tpc, that's the only way the game would read it - far as I can recall.

Edit: I haven't really practiced using the uncompressed version, so I'm not quite sure about it working or not. That information I got from the tool's page. In the past I was using mostly 24bpp/DXT1 -- it works, but the result could have been better when using the uncompressed one I'd gather.

Edited May 17, 2020 by ebmar

[Jorak Uln]

22 minutes ago, ebmar said:

For the diffuse/LMA_ floor01s.TXI, you can leave out both envmaptexture and wateralpha [unless you needed that, but I don't see why], and use only these two --

bumpyshinytexture CM_asith
bumpmaptexture LMA_floor01sB

as well as the normal-map/LMA_ floor01sB.TXI, just leave it like this --

isbumpmap 1
bumpmapscaling 2

See if that changes anything. Though more importantly is how you setup the normal-map. You'd be better export it as 24/32bpp uncompressed-TPC format using tga2tpc, that's the only way the game would read it - far as I can recall.

Edit: I haven't really practiced using the uncompressed version, so I'm not quite sure about it working or not. That information I got from the tool's page. In the past I was using mostly 24bpp/DXT1 -- it works, but the result could have been better when using the uncompressed one I'd gather.

The problem doesnt seem to be the bumpmap itself - > for example textures which model has a bumpmp assigned in vanilla already , work fine (also with the bumpshiny etc commands in the txi)

e.g. LMA_floor03BMP works with the custom map:

The issue seems to be textures, which dont have a vanilla bumpmap assigned by default like LMA_floor01s. 

@DarthParametricmentioned here that the model needs to be edited for the game to recognise the bumpmap in this case. But ive never used MDLedit v 1.0.9 Beta before, so i dont know how to do this..

 

[DarthParametric]

The model needs a flag enabled in the trimesh for normal maps to function. In MDLEdit you can just load the model, go to Edit -> Textures, then tick the checkbox next to any textures than have an associated normal map. There should be built in help that explains all this.

[Crazy34]

Haha DarthParametric was faster than me! As a note for me MDLEDIT 1.0.9 Beta throws some error sometimes. For my lightsaber mod I use 1.0.6 for compiling and 1.0.3 for decompiling. 

[DarthParametric]

1.0.104 should be the current beta version.

[Jorak Uln]

Somehow  didnt find the 1.0.104 version, only the 1.03 from bead-v, so i tried with this one: 

I dropped  the m28aa_01a.mdl & m28aa_01a.mdx from Kotor Tool into Override, loaded the m28aa_01a.mdl into MDLedit and ticked  the box for LMA_floor01s. 

Then i saved the file as "binary" and overwrote the existing MDL in Override Folder.  But now that happens: 

(the bumpmap is not visible and somehow all those tex went invisible...)

[DarthParametric]

https://deadlystream.com/topic/5735-mdledit-bug-reporting-thread/?do=findComment&comment=73932

[Jorak Uln]

2 hours ago, DarthParametric said:

https://deadlystream.com/topic/5735-mdledit-bug-reporting-thread/?do=findComment&comment=73932

the 1.0.104B version worked! Thanks a lot! Hope its stable/realiable enough though, since i'll have to edit a ton of files & rename textures for better performance as well....

[DarthParametric]

Just so you know, Odyssey's normal map implementation is piss weak. There's generally little reason to bother with using them in KOTOR. You won't get the sort of results you'd expect from pretty much any other engine from the last two decades. In my experience, the only time you get any really noticeable result is when used in combination with a cubemap mixed at 100%. Which is probably fine if you are making a Terminator total conversion and need a lot of chrome, but otherwise a waste of time.

[Jorak Uln]

6 hours ago, DarthParametric said:

Just so you know, Odyssey's normal map implementation is piss weak. There's generally little reason to bother with using them in KOTOR. You won't get the sort of results you'd expect from pretty much any other engine from the last two decades. In my experience, the only time you get any really noticeable result is when used in combination with a cubemap mixed at 100%. Which is probably fine if you are making a Terminator total conversion and need a lot of chrome, but otherwise a waste of time.

Yeah, the effect is quite subtle, but its still a cool thing to have especially when getting fine structures on walls/floors etc. visible that wouldnt be possible otherwise...

One thing i noticed - somehow, the texture rename doesnt seem to work with  1.0.104B. At least after renaming/saving as binary mdl the walls are still using the vanilla nomenclature.