Sorry for not getting back to ya before. I tried disabling that option at some point and saw no difference with the normalmap, so you should be good :)
I want to use your normal maps with Cobl, which uses Capucine's modified eye meshes that add glow maps, so I've been looking at the eye meshes in NifSkope, and trying to figure out exactly what changes you have made, but I haven't been able to figure it out. In the case of Nuska's glowing eye meshes, I couldn't find any changes at all from the original, and for the left eye, the CRCs even match.
For your modified vanilla eyes, it looks like your meshes are using a different version of the file format, v10.2.0.0, from the original eyes, which are v20.0.0.5. Your meshes are also lacking the NiBinaryExtraData block, which seems to contain tangent space information. Then, under NiTexturingProperty -> Base Texture you have added "PS2 L" and "PS2 K" values, which seem to handle texture blurring and mipmaps.
Which of these changes, if any, have to do with normal maps? Do the meshes even need to be changed for normal maps to show up?
For glow maps, I understand that the Emissive Color of the NiMaterialProperty needs to be changed for the glow map to actually do anything, but I thought meshes show normal maps by default. Are eyes a special case?
Just as an update, I received a reply from T3alrose in a PM. The reason for the edited meshes is that the UV map needs to be mirrored in the right eye, or the normal map won't reflect light correctly.
So I set out to make this compatible with Capucine's eye meshes and textures, which meant having to install and learn NifSkope and Gimp. Good fun. Turns out it's not that hard, thankfully. A little trial and error got it done. So, here's how to do it, in case anyone's curious, or needs to do it for their own eye meshes. Or in case I forget how to do it, and need to look it up myself. :-)
In NifSkope, open the right eye mesh, then expand the Block List until you see NiTriStripsData. Right-click on it, and select Mesh -> Flip UV, accept the warning message if any, and in the list that pops up pick S = 1.0 - S. Then save the file, and you're done!
In the case of Cobl and Race Balancing Project, which use Capucine's eye meshes and textures, I also had to edit the normal map, since Capucine's eye textures have a different shape from vanilla. There might be a better way to do this, but since I don't know how to generate a new normal map from scratch, here's the way I found to make the diffuse and normal match with the help of Gimp.
Open both the eye diffuse texture and the normal map. Select all on the diffuse, then copy and paste it into the normal map. It will be a floating selection. Right-click it, and select To New Layer. Then select the main surface layer, where the actual normal map is, and use the Scale tool to resize and move it until it matches the diffuse in the background. Click the Scale button to confirm.
Now in my case I had to upscale, so the whole texture got bigger dimensions. We want to keep the same texture size, so open a new instance of the original normal map, pick select all and delete in the main surface, so it's completely empty, and then copy and paste the resized normal map into it. Then instead of save, we have to pick File - > Export as... -> DDS. Since the original normal map is uncompressed, we can stick with that, and default format, no mipmaps. I don't know how good Gimp's mipmaps are, so I used DDSopt to generate those.
Feel free to tell me if there's an easier way to do it, T3alrose, or anyone else who happens by.
The end result looks pretty good. Capucine's diffuse textures already have a fake reflection baked in, which is part of why I like them, so the eyes end up looking quite shiny, but I think adding the normal map is still a worthwhile improvement.
Oh, and I think the Skyrim mod that was the inspiration for this one was probably Eye Normal Map Fix by Mr Dave. Also a great mod, and one I wholeheartedly recommend for any Skyrim players.
Done. I've now uploaded a normalmap which should look fine on those eye meshes, but you'll have to name it after your base eye textures plus "_n" at the end, then move the texture to textures > characters > eyes. I don't use MBP myself, I just tried to download it but it seemed to take forever because the file was so large. So I don't know how good my new normalmap will look, but you're welcome to provide some screenshots.
You don't have to download whole MBP just for make fitting normal map if it is generic normal map for all. Beautiful People and MBP use Nequam's Elaborate Eyes, so all you need to do is grab Nequam's PSD file or conversion template to work. Although some eyes in MBP have different iris size(As for Fairy eyes, it has alternative sets with different iris size).
I know the exact Skryim mod you mentioned. I'm so happy that since the collapse of File Planet, I squirrel away mods. Otherwise, I'd be totally bummed to discover that I couldn't re-download those Skyrim normal maps... The ones that you've faithfully recreated here.
For those who read comments in order to make a decision, install this mod. It will not overwrite your current OCO eyes. If you ultimately decide that you don't like these new normals (and meshes), you can simply drag and drop this mod and control-z to uninstall. There's no reason not to give this mod a try.
What this mod does is to cause NPC eyes to more accurately reflect light. The difference is subtle, but definitely noticeable. Especially when in dialogue. Ideally, these normals would get incorporated into the OCO download package or at least linked to in the OCO description.
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I want to use your normal maps with Cobl, which uses Capucine's modified eye meshes that add glow maps, so I've been looking at the eye meshes in NifSkope, and trying to figure out exactly what changes you have made, but I haven't been able to figure it out. In the case of Nuska's glowing eye meshes, I couldn't find any changes at all from the original, and for the left eye, the CRCs even match.
For your modified vanilla eyes, it looks like your meshes are using a different version of the file format, v10.2.0.0, from the original eyes, which are v20.0.0.5. Your meshes are also lacking the NiBinaryExtraData block, which seems to contain tangent space information. Then, under NiTexturingProperty -> Base Texture you have added "PS2 L" and "PS2 K" values, which seem to handle texture blurring and mipmaps.
Which of these changes, if any, have to do with normal maps? Do the meshes even need to be changed for normal maps to show up?
For glow maps, I understand that the Emissive Color of the NiMaterialProperty needs to be changed for the glow map to actually do anything, but I thought meshes show normal maps by default. Are eyes a special case?
Please enlighten me. :-)
So I set out to make this compatible with Capucine's eye meshes and textures, which meant having to install and learn NifSkope and Gimp. Good fun. Turns out it's not that hard, thankfully. A little trial and error got it done. So, here's how to do it, in case anyone's curious, or needs to do it for their own eye meshes. Or in case I forget how to do it, and need to look it up myself. :-)
In NifSkope, open the right eye mesh, then expand the Block List until you see NiTriStripsData. Right-click on it, and select Mesh -> Flip UV, accept the warning message if any, and in the list that pops up pick S = 1.0 - S. Then save the file, and you're done!
In the case of Cobl and Race Balancing Project, which use Capucine's eye meshes and textures, I also had to edit the normal map, since Capucine's eye textures have a different shape from vanilla. There might be a better way to do this, but since I don't know how to generate a new normal map from scratch, here's the way I found to make the diffuse and normal match with the help of Gimp.
Open both the eye diffuse texture and the normal map. Select all on the diffuse, then copy and paste it into the normal map. It will be a floating selection. Right-click it, and select To New Layer. Then select the main surface layer, where the actual normal map is, and use the Scale tool to resize and move it until it matches the diffuse in the background. Click the Scale button to confirm.
Now in my case I had to upscale, so the whole texture got bigger dimensions. We want to keep the same texture size, so open a new instance of the original normal map, pick select all and delete in the main surface, so it's completely empty, and then copy and paste the resized normal map into it. Then instead of save, we have to pick File - > Export as... -> DDS. Since the original normal map is uncompressed, we can stick with that, and default format, no mipmaps. I don't know how good Gimp's mipmaps are, so I used DDSopt to generate those.
Feel free to tell me if there's an easier way to do it, T3alrose, or anyone else who happens by.
The end result looks pretty good. Capucine's diffuse textures already have a fake reflection baked in, which is part of why I like them, so the eyes end up looking quite shiny, but I think adding the normal map is still a worthwhile improvement.
Oh, and I think the Skyrim mod that was the inspiration for this one was probably Eye Normal Map Fix by Mr Dave. Also a great mod, and one I wholeheartedly recommend for any Skyrim players.
For those who read comments in order to make a decision, install this mod. It will not overwrite your current OCO eyes. If you ultimately decide that you don't like these new normals (and meshes), you can simply drag and drop this mod and control-z to uninstall. There's no reason not to give this mod a try.
What this mod does is to cause NPC eyes to more accurately reflect light. The difference is subtle, but definitely noticeable. Especially when in dialogue. Ideally, these normals would get incorporated into the OCO download package or at least linked to in the OCO description.
You want these normal maps.
Great work T3alrose! Thank you!
Nah, nuska is too busy.