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jade texture / material how to

polycounter lvl 14
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NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
Hello , I am wondering how to make a jade texture material ingame , is there any tutorial or do you have any tips to achieve something like this ingame ?

http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/images/thumb/6/61/Jade_happy_buddha.jpg/600px-Jade_happy_buddha.jpg

I have no idea on how to make the SSS to give a good look or how much shine I shoudl place on the object ...

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  • Adam L. Gray
    Well, it's basically a cloudy and sublime green material, with high gloss and spec. Could add a reflection map to it as well to get something more like so: http://congeeinc.com/images/lookingGift/jade003.jpg

    It varies a bit in appearance though really.

    As for how to go about creating it. Look up a lot of refs til you find what you're after. Grab a marble texture off of CGtextures or something like it that represents the material well. Change the colour and contrast until it looks about right, then toss some specular and gloss on there.

    If you want a rough surface, then add some noisy bump etc. should be quite straightforward!
  • C86G
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    C86G greentooth
    I think it would really help to paint the lighter spots (where is SSS) into a diffuse map and add some fresnel reflections.
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    Here is how I did the main base texture using a noise clouds in 3 tones of green , an overlay of striped white and green texture found online , overlayed with severall blurred and sharp versions of cavity and occlusion maps ...

    what do you think?

    84461790.jpg
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    I added a specular map and a environment map but doesn't give much the wanted effect ... may be I need to add a subsurface?

    jadeshield.jpg
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    Updated with a parallax and subsurface map , ( for skyrim standaards ) I have no idea what is a parallax in skyrim as it has nothing to do with displacement , it looks like a colored map , I just copied how was done for the glaciers , so the thing becomes slight translucent and changing on angle ....

    what you think hopw can I improve ?

    99936013.jpg
  • Ryan Clark
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    Ryan Clark polycounter lvl 18
    Try making the specularity pink or purple in color, so that the surface feels less metallic.

    Also try raising the "gloss" or "specular exponent" to a higher value.

    I wouldn't try throwing on additional effects until you've got the specularity looking closer to what you want.
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    there are no tune sliders in the skyrim stuff , so I can only play on the texture , do you suggest like I highlight more ( white means more spec in the normal map alpha ) the jade part and blurr it ?
  • Ryan Clark
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    Ryan Clark polycounter lvl 18
    Ahh, so you don't have colored specularity?
  • Ryan Clark
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    Ryan Clark polycounter lvl 18
    Can you adjust the color of the environment map?

    ( Alternatively, can you edit the text of the pixel shader? )

    You really need some way to adjust glossiness and specular color. It could be a slider, or a texture, or a variable in a text file.
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    I can change a cubemap , wich I guess in skyrim terms is the environment map , I used a mostly greenish one ...

    for the specular lightning its based on the alpha channel in the nromal map

    the darker , no spec , the lighter max spec


    I try now to change some and see what happens ...
  • Ryan Clark
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    Ryan Clark polycounter lvl 18
    The normal map alpha will determine your specular level. Jade is pretty uniformly shiny, so try starting with that channel filled with a constant value.

    Your specular exponent (also called "gloss") is not related to the normal map's alpha channel. It must be adjustable somewhere else.

    Googling "skyrim gloss" leads me to people talking about "BSLightingShaderProperty."

    See if you can figure out what "BSLightingShaderProperty" is, and how to adjust it.
  • Ryan Clark
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    Ryan Clark polycounter lvl 18
    You dont want a green environment map. Try making it purple instead.

    Green diffuse + Green reflections = green highlights, which looks metallic.

    Green diffuse + purple reflections = white highlights, which looks more like jade.
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    ok I made the specular map mostly white and blurred so that the carvings dark look dark but blurred and the most f the area is withe light blurred...

    the BSLightingShaderProperty is the property that allows to select the severall textures to use ..

    but indeed I found those two settings :

    glossiness float 65.0000
    specular color set to a green one
    specular strenght 1.6 ...

    you suggest to changee those?

    I do not understand well the difference between glossiness and specular , isn't almoust the same?
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    here some samples of the maps I was using ...

    mapsyg.jpg
  • Ryan Clark
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    Ryan Clark polycounter lvl 18
    Try setting specular color to something in magenta. Maybe 255 100 255

    Specular level controls the brightness of highlights on your object's surface.

    Glossiness controls the size and shape of those highlights.

    High glossiness will give you small, sharp highlights.

    Low glossiness will give you large, duller highlights.

    Adjusting specular level will make those highlights brigher or dimmer, but won't change the shape of them.
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    this is how looks with a violet magenta purple somecolor of this ingame .... I remove tfor now the parallax and the subsurfaces ... to see the effect of the spec map and the environment map ...

    wipbp.jpg

    glossiness 100

    spec strenght 2

    wip2u.jpg

    glossiness 50

    spec strenght 1.5
  • Ryan Clark
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    Ryan Clark polycounter lvl 18
    Just for the sake of sanity, I'd try adjusting one effect at a time.

    Turn off parallax, subsurface, and cubemap, and start with a solid white (or grey) specmap.

    Then adjust the values in BSLightingShaderProperty until you are satisfied with the color and shape of your specular highlights.

    Experiment with gloss values in the range from 80 - 200.

    Experiment with specular colors in the range from magenta to white.


    Then try adjusting the specmap to account for grooves in the jade being more dingy while protruding parts are more polished. Your current specmap is probably fine, but I would still want to adjust one parameter at a time, to get a feel for what each value does.

    Once you are happy with your specularity, then you might try experimenting with an env map.
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    I have set the maps off , I only kept the specularity normals and diffuse ....

    here is with glossiness 10

    spec strenght 2

    wipwt.jpg

    about the env ma pseems that there are two maps one probably projected , the cubemap very small and the other seems a black and white mask so I guess is used for what gets taken by the env map ...

    so if I want to make the metal reflect a lot I guess shoudl put more white there or same with the jade?
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    How about this one?

    spec strenght 1

    glossiness 25

    spec color magenta pushed toward the white ....

    as fprthe bronze behind I am splitting the two materials as I guess I can't use both the subsurface for metal and jade or the same env color ...

    wip2d.jpg
  • Ryan Clark
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    Ryan Clark polycounter lvl 18
    What's in your normal map alpha channel at this point?

    There's a lot of yellow in this image. Is it just from a yellow light source?

    What does it look like with the specular color set to white?
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    It's from a fire I guess ... shoudl I find another place whre to test?
  • Ryan Clark
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    Ryan Clark polycounter lvl 18
    I would look for a more neutral light source to use when adjusting specular color.

    You'll want to play around with the gloss level until you get small sharp highlights, like the ones on that Buddha. I'm thinking you'll want a much higher gloss.

    Just fill the normal map alpha with solid white for now, since you want to see what gloss does on its own.

    Once that's done, adjust the specular color and level until the highlights look white, like the ones on the buddha.
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    ok cool I 'll do that ... as for the other maps how those work ?
  • Ryan Clark
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    Ryan Clark polycounter lvl 18
    For the bronze part, you'll probably want a lower gloss value (since bronze isn't as glossy as jade), and a specular color similar to the diffuse color.
  • Ryan Clark
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    Ryan Clark polycounter lvl 18
    For the env map, you've probably got a cube map representing the environment, and a grayscale texture representing how shiny the object is at each point on its surface.

    I would start with the grayscale texture at solid white, and adjust it gradually darker to see how it behaves. That buddha is pretty uniformly shiny, so a solid-color reflectivity is probably pretty close to what you want.
  • Ryan Clark
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    Ryan Clark polycounter lvl 18
    It might be smart to look through the game for a glossy object similar to what you want... maybe something made of glass, and see what its material properties are.
  • throttlekitty
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    throttlekitty ngon master
    One of the shader flags is "Own Emit". I haven't tested this, but i assume that the model won't absorb ambient or diffuse color from external light sources. Soft light is another, but I'm unsure how that one works at all.

    (update nif.xml if you don't see that in the shader flag dropdowns)

    edit: wrong about own emit, not sure what that does. Opposing specular color does neutralize properly, even in a colored light, however.
  • OriginLinear
    Figured I would have a go at re-doing the diffuse a bit. Not sure if it will help, but I think it is how I would have done the diffuse anyway.

    Jade.jpg



    I think for the diffuse it might be best to reduce, or even eliminate the dark areas and let the materials do the work.
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    yes I am having fun tuning the stuff now on the nif anf with the f5 key I can preview faster so I dont have to waste time reloading all the levels .... altough I am getting an error about the lightining I dunno what that means ...

    for reference I looked at how they made the Ice to see the "parallax" texture and the subsurface texture , but I actually do not know how they work couse the parallax looks like a dark diffuse detailed color map and the suburface seems a very blurred inverted version of this with color as well ...

    for the diffuse I wanted to give some contrast couse I want to shape to be recognized better as since is placed on a flat surface I would loose much of the carving detail otherwise I think ...
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    here is how looks now , tough seems that touching the glossiness and specular strenght works untill I touch the environment map strenght , when I alter this all rest seems to be overrided and even if I put to 100 200 or 1 the glossiness the look is the same with the environment map ...

    shieldr.jpg
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    How that looks ?



    It is supposed to look like Jade ....



    jadashield.jpg
  • pseudoBug
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    pseudoBug polycounter lvl 18
    I like OriginLinear's suggestion on the diffuse - it's getting there, but the shadows a too dark, I'd say.

    The thing to remember about jade, is that it's a very translucent material, and shadows are very light due to the subsurface light bounces.
  • MikeF
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    MikeF polycounter lvl 19
    i'm not sure to what extent the material system works in that particular engine, but if you could add a fresnel based off the normals, you might be able to get that soft light tone in the creases
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    Thanks for all the sugestions ... how about now?

    I didn't yet tune the textures I removed the environment map tough and eft only parallax diffuse normal and subsurface ... I guess now is all about the tuning of the textures ? ...

    http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/389/shieldk.jpg
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    here is a video , is elaborating still should be online soon I also tweaked more the transparency based on the ice stuff but not that transparent , I hope now looks like a very shiny , preciouse semitransparent pure Jade .....


    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhB8_B4RQ5Q"]JadeShieldHD - YouTube[/ame]



    There are many kinds of jade in different colors and transparency , I wanted to use an almoust gemstonelike type with high transparency ....

    I wanted to gon the middle on this scale...

    http://thesbeauty.com/pics_5/jade16.jpg


    The Value of a piece of Jade is strongly affected by its translucence, that is, how transparent the stone is. Some jade is totally opaque -it looks like a dull rock and it does not hold any light inside it. Jade is never totally transparent as, for example glass is. The best jade is translucent: it looks solid but seams to glow with life.Nearly transparent: Jade like this is almost never seen. It is so transparent, we can almost see through it. Jadeite like this is appreciated as phenomenal
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    So does this look good as jade?
  • Computron
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    Computron polycounter lvl 7
    I feel like it gets too dark on the parts of the normal map facing away from the light. I don't know what options you have for remedying that in Skyrim's SDK, so I can't recommend any fix.
  • tristamus
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    tristamus polycounter lvl 9
    I'd say you've done a well enough job conveying Jade, and congrats on that. However, the shields face / front seems to be a bit too noisy. I feel like you were trying to convey some kind of imagery on the front, but it hasn't come through as well as it should. The back, however, is awesome.

    And FUCK YEAH, SKYRIM!

    Edit: I wanna see the shield in use in the game :]
  • pseudoBug
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    pseudoBug polycounter lvl 18
    Lookin' pretty good. Maybe still a tad dark, but not much.

    And yeah, it's definitely difficult to see what's going on in the sculpt. Material is definitely better.
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    Thanks for the replies ... Have u checked the vid at hd? I find pretty weird the materials in skyrim and its a lot of guessing work couse no manuals no description of what is what and parallax here is something different from a displacement ... Plus using environment mask overrides this other parallax and subsurface effect or other weird undocumented features ... But i think now should look enough credible ... As for dark texture I used couse altough I wanted a semi transparent jade behind the sculpture there is a dark metal that I guess should prevent further light scattering ...
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