0 of 0

File information

Last updated

Original upload

Created by

Jacqueslws

Uploaded by

Jacqueslws

Virus scan

Safe to use

Tags for this mod

2 comments

  1. Sky91
    Sky91
    • member
    • 36 kudos
    Hello! a technical question - how does it work? I know metalness via ENB is usually done with cubemaps assigned in the meshes, and refraction settings and flags therein. Parallaxes are done via complex material with a "depth map" in the alpha channel of one of the .dd versions. But here you provide only a .dds, which i know as the "base paint" of an object - RGB mixed to a painting. How does it do dynamic reflections good Sir?
    1. Jacqueslws
      Jacqueslws
      • premium
      • 27 kudos
      I'm glad you asked. I used normal maps (_n.dds) to achieve this. Normal maps can change two important things of an object's surface. The first is its bumpiness, which most people know. However, many are unaware of how important they are to "glossiness".

      Environment maps (_e.dds) can do this as well, and some would argue they do it with more precision. However, achieving glossiness with environment maps is very tricky on FO3/FNV, and I haven't had much joy using them.

      Gimp 3 has been released with the dds plugin already installed, but it's somewhat broken. Quite by accident, I discovered that creating normal maps with Gimp 3 will always give glossy images. That's because it lacks certain alpha settings that's crucial to achieve realistic images. It's therefore not very useful for things like weapons, but for power armors and robots it's absolutely perfect.

      I would still recommend that you use Gimp 2.10 for everyday use, but if you want truly metallic surfaces for some things, Gimp 3 is better.