Bridge Commander Central
BC Forums => BC Modding => Topic started by: King Class Scout on July 11, 2009, 05:05:23 PM
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I've got a couple of ships who's glows are practically nonexistent. I wanna repair these for myself (and do some color correction on top of everything, one ship has the wrong bussard and plasma manifold coloring). but it looks like things work in reverse. a fade correction on the Targas simply dulled things even more. how do I get these things to light up better?
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TGA files have a Alpha channel in them, at least in PhotoShop. That is were you would need to apply your fix. The other place would be on the model itself in Max depending on how the lighting was assigned to the model either by a seperate map or through the texture.
The rest of it you can try StarForce in a PM he has converted Ships from SFC to BC which requires Glows to be added, and assigning alpha channels
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well, that explains a lot. unfortunately, i lost my copy of Photoshop to a Virus. at the moment all I have is a Paintshop (although Alphas would explain why Irfanview shows the glows without showing the ship's skin texture)
Edit: Paintshop does have Alpha Channel access...all I need now is how to increase the appearance of these glows to something a bit brighter.
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funny thing is old versions of irfan didn't do that. I should write the author to see if he can update with a fix for that. Or a switch to allow the user to change.
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The other place would be on the model itself in Max depending on how the lighting was assigned to the model either by a seperate map or through the texture.
That's in SFC, not in BC. ;) BC only reads the alpha channel, and only if the texture has the suffix you assigned in the ship script.
As for the OP's glow problem, simply put, the whiter the alpha, the brighter the glow.
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my experimenting last night produced the same results. they just get darker and darker at the glow points. when I went over every available map with Irfanview, I figured out why. they're IN REVERSE. the glows are isolated areas intended to be opaque, with the ship hull portions "disappearing".
Starforce2: tell him it's in 4.23.0.0 i've allready got an update listing via filehippo anyway.
Paintshop reads an "alpha" channel as a mask set round the glows. now whether the "mask" is isolating the actual glow area, or is inverted (as I believe), I'll have to do some experimenting to try and figure this out. i'm gonna try bleaching the hulls on it, this time, rather than the glow points, and see if that brightens them up.
I'm experimenting because I've been working with computer graphics programs since 1990 (AutoCAD10 in high school), and vid game cheat devices about that long, and have a handle on these things, for some odd reason
btw, since this MAX you guys keep talking about for modeling costs a fortune, and is probably licenced from here to eternity, I'm most likely gonna duck it. I don't believe in credit cards anymore due to card-stupidity as a 20 something.
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can someone point me toward a howto? i can't find anything through a search that doesn't come up with 2 million results...all for each word in the phrase :P
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I'm a max user myself but I belive there is a free program called milkshake that you could use.
I belive most modders you one or the other.
But it is important that any new texturename_glow.tga is assigned to the mesh prior to nif exporting.
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I was contemplating another one on a freebie.
mabey I didn't explain myself clearly enough (i tend to do that). i'm working on these TGA's with Paintshop. a lot of stuff leaning towards Photoshop instructions do seen to work, though.
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I'm making a tutorial now, it will show different methods with different programs. Program suggestions will be allowed when the thread is up.
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grr...
looks like I can't use Paintshop for Alpha channels. it only functions as a save to/load from...you can't do anything else with it. :P
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Paint Shop Tutorial added
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Kirk you should probably add a link to the Tutorials as not everyone is forum savy
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http://bc-central.net/forums/index.php/board,44.0.html
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Or just look at my sig. ;)
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my experimenting last night produced the same results. they just get darker and darker at the glow points. when I went over every available map with Irfanview, I figured out why. they're IN REVERSE. the glows are isolated areas intended to be opaque, with the ship hull portions "disappearing".
Starforce2: tell him it's in 4.23.0.0 i've allready got an update listing via filehippo anyway.
Paintshop reads an "alpha" channel as a mask set round the glows. now whether the "mask" is isolating the actual glow area, or is inverted (as I believe), I'll have to do some experimenting to try and figure this out. i'm gonna try bleaching the hulls on it, this time, rather than the glow points, and see if that brightens them up.
I'm experimenting because I've been working with computer graphics programs since 1990 (AutoCAD10 in high school), and vid game cheat devices about that long, and have a handle on these things, for some odd reason
btw, since this MAX you guys keep talking about for modeling costs a fortune, and is probably licenced from here to eternity, I'm most likely gonna duck it. I don't believe in credit cards anymore due to card-stupidity as a 20 something.
What do you mean...4.23 is the latest version which displays them wrong?
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yeah. when you said something about it, I went and looked up the version.
not long after, i got the note for the update (i have filehippo), and, even with the current release, it's still showing only the masked areas of the glows. there's a benifit, though. it shows me where some of my goofs concerning my reskin are.
Addendum: it just hit me. I DLed the two ships I've been harping about during the time where BCFiles was having all that connection trouble. since the reboot, I've had no trouble or crashes (and have switched browsers for it) since. when I switched to Opera for mod downloads, they appear in a few seconds (one to three meg ships) on a DSL connection.
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To everybody:
my little "glow" problem is now solved.
the original DL's of the "RomBC" 1.0 and the Cardassian bakrus, the two "no glow" ships is solved. I got corrupt versions.
i re-downloaded the Rom BC, and got the proper Alpha channel settings. looks like I won't be pulling out any more addons with firefox. this also explains my delete and reinstall problems.
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I'm a max user myself but I belive there is a free program called milkshake that you could use.
I belive most modders you one or the other.
But it is important that any new texturename_glow.tga is assigned to the mesh prior to nif exporting.
Yeah, that's Milkshape, it does the job. It's not free, but compared to MAX it practically is, a license for milkshape costs only about $35 or 25 euro (I know that's not the same, don't ask)
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Aces: i have not now, nor have I ever, paid for a liscence product. thanks to stupidity in my twenties trying to keep up with hefty car insurance (for state minimum requirements), old cars, a partially completed degree, and havng to skip bills because eating was more of a priority, my credit is gone. I've spent the last couple years paying bills on a steady basis to get it to decent levels, only to have my job pulled out from under me by the recession. I don't touch banks or credit cards, and only take trials, freebies, or gifts (Bargians, on the other hand, i POUNCE on).
I even had to throw away an antispyware program I bought to keep my mother's comp straightened out (she picks up EVERY piece of spyware in existance, somehow) because the licence fee required a credit card!