Shiny items | Morroblivion

This has been mentioned in another thread but that one was closed before anyone could answer.

Some items (for example some imperial armor, some clutter) have very shiny surfaces just as if they were enchanted or something.

Here is a picture so you know what I mean. Just look at the items on the table.

[External image]

For example the pitcher you see on the table is the item "0miscUimpUsilverwareUpitcher".

Is there a mod that replaces these items with less shiny versions?

The shininess is derived from

The shininess is derived from the opacity of the normal maps when a mesh utilises environmental mapping. There are two ways to reduce this effect: one is to reduce the opacity of each normal map (could be difficult because of compression artifacts), the other way is to revert the mesh to the standard rendering technique (no environmental mapping).

Either way, it would probably require a lot of work. :/

Just as Billyro says, opacity

Just as Billyro says, opacity of the normal map is responsible for gloss of objects. The easiest and most reliable method is to open the normal map in Gimp (or PS), add mask to the layer, fill the mask with very dark grey (almost black, actually - only 3-4% white when you go for matte, 6-8% white for polished stuff, 10% for glossy. In PS and Gimp black mask makes the image transparent, white makes it visible.), hit "Apply mask" (don't worry if your normal map is nearly invisible), export as DDS using DXT3 compression.

Easy peasy, just incredibly boring and tedious when you need to soap, wash and rinse dozens of textures like that.

Of course you can let your hair loose and hand-paint the mask, making fabric matte, metal parts shinier, and, say, glass, quite glossy. But that will be a lot more work if you want the effect to look really cool. But I say it's very well worth it. :)

Thanks to both of you for the

Thanks to both of you for the infos. Unfortunately I have two left hands when it comes to working with graphics but I will at least try it.

Actually, this particular

Actually, this particular effect is controlled by setting in the nif file, not the texture.

I tried to alter the look of

I tried to alter the look of that silver pitcher but wasn't successful. That mask thingy I applied in Gimp didn't do anything. I probably did it wrong (quite possible with my lack of skill...) or as qwerty says I need to modify the mesh.

I saw in the mesh that it uses the default Oblivion textures and that's the one I tried to modify although I didn't find any shiny items in Oblivion so far. It should look the same in Oblivion if the texture was the problem, right? I also did a quick test and copied the Oblivion mesh over the Morroblivion mesh and the pitcher looks just fine afterwards.

So what exactly do I need to modify in the mesh? I only have NifScope to take a look at the mesh and alter some parameters but I do not have a real 3D graphics tool nor the skill to use it. If it's too complicated for me I will just have to live with it. After all it's not as important as quest or scripting bugs. Those I can fix myself.

In NifSkope navigate to

In NifSkope navigate to NiTriShape/NiTriStrips block of the model in question, expand it and select NiTexturingProperty. Then, in Block Details window (located at the bottom by default) find "Apply Mode" parameter and change it from APPLY_HILIGHT to APPLY_MODULATE. Save the mesh.

P.S. This isn't a bug, strictly speaking. I'm quite sure this effect was added deliberately to some of the Morroblivion meshes.

Thank you very much. I tried

Thank you very much. I tried that trick and it gives a matt finish to the pitcher.

[External image]

The Oblivion texture doesn't seem to be the perfect fit for this mesh anyway. Maybe that was the reason why it was made shiny so players don't notice the texture so much.

Now I can check other items as well and see if I can give them a "better" and less shiny look.