Bridge Commander Central

Recreational Forums => Art Forum => Topic started by: admiral horton on April 06, 2015, 08:50:05 AM

Title: Specular Maps
Post by: admiral horton on April 06, 2015, 08:50:05 AM

Does anyone have any tips on making specular maps in gimp for Bridge Commander Mods

Title: Re: Specular Maps
Post by: flarespire on April 06, 2015, 01:05:42 PM

have you tried grey-scaling the image and playing around with the levels of the image to make a specular map?

Title: Re: Specular Maps
Post by: admiral horton on April 06, 2015, 03:00:00 PM

yeah I have

Then I look at the specular maps in BC Mods and they just don't look the same and there is no tutorials on making them for Star Trek ships

Title: Re: Specular Maps
Post by: flarespire on April 07, 2015, 12:49:42 AM

might be something to do with the .tga export settings, mind posting the settings for export gimp gives you?

Title: Re: Specular Maps
Post by: Bones on April 07, 2015, 02:40:03 AM

Make sure your specular map doesn't have alpha channel, otherwise it specular highlights won't appear in game, also it doesn't have to be greyscale, 8 bit RGB will do just fine (you might even have some colored speculars if you wish to add pearlescent effect to the hull, just like Constitution refit had)

In ship scripts, ship.py should also have lines pointing to maps with _specular / _spec suffix, it looks like this

Code: [Select]

# Search String for Glow, Search string for Specular, Suffix for specular
pLODModel = App.g_kLODModelManager.Create(pStats["Name"])
pLODModel.AddLOD(pStats["FilenameHigh"], 10, 120.0, 15.0, 15.0, 400, 900, "_glow", None, "_specular")
pLODModel.AddLOD(pStats["FilenameMed"],  10, 300.0, 15.0, 15.0, 400, 900, "_glow", None, "_specular")
pLODModel.AddLOD(pStats["FilenameLow"],  10, 600.0, 15.0, 30.0, 400, 900, "_glow", None, "_specular")

Title: Re: Specular Maps
Post by: admiral horton on April 07, 2015, 03:52:19 AM

Well I ain't use it for a game but 3D art and I am taking a tga converting it to png and desaturing it then using the level tab in gimp to adjust but I still ain't getting the same look as other who do speculars

Title: Re: Specular Maps
Post by: Tethys on April 07, 2015, 09:15:24 AM

Usually desaturation and levels work, but you can also try playing with the exposure too, most notably the gamma correction. Not too much though, because then the texture runs together and you dont get the greebled effect, but a pasty specular that just shines. If that fails to work, sometimes I find that inverting the desaturated texture and then doing the levels and gamma on it will give me my result. Good luck.

Title: Re: Specular Maps
Post by: admiral horton on April 07, 2015, 01:34:46 PM

Thanks I will try that

Title: Re: Specular Maps
Post by: admiral horton on April 07, 2015, 04:36:57 PM

The exposure I am guessing is in Photoshop, but does anyone know that it is called in gimp