Problems: Normal map looks glossy and Geoset Visibility

[Stonebreaker]

Hello Hive Community,

I'm new to modeling, especially with Retera’s Model Studio. Currently, I'm working on a bunch of Troggs. As the basis for the models, I used the Draenei Guardian. Unfortunately, I’m confronted with some problems which I just couldn't solve.

1. Problem: Normal Map

You can see the first and major problem in the screenshots I took. The first screenshot depicts the model in Retera’s Model Studio, where it works fine. In the map editor and in-game, it looks glossy – particularly those textures I messed around with.

I guess it’s a problem with my normal map, which I had to change. I also suppose that it has something to do with the file, respectively the file size, as the models with a normal map in .tif format don't look as glossy as those with .dds format. On the other hand, pasting an existing normal map into the normal map file, saving it, and then using it as the normal map for the model didn't result in this glossy appearance.

While searching for the reason, I tested minor changes in the normal map of the human peasant. Essentially, I used the clone tool in GIMP and cloned the pixels to their original place – which should result in an identical looking peasant. While he looked fine in Retera’s Model Studio, he also looked glossy in-game.

2. Problem: Geoset Animation

And there is another problem with the Trogg model. It’s losing its hair and teeth, and in one case, even its nose in the other standing animations - sometimes from the beginning of the animation, sometimes while playing the animation. I tried changing the visibility within the GeosetAnim Code by setting the value from 0 to 1 for the animations in question. But somehow this didn't work. I only managed to make certain geosets disappear by setting them from 1 to 0 – but that’s not what I want.



Is anyone familiar with these problems? I would be very thankful for help as I've tried and tried and couldn't solve them myself.
Best regards,
Stonebreaker

 

[Retera]

1. It's been a while since I bothered to deal with the Reforged format files but what I always did was save the textures in DDS format, and then for each map type (Diffuse, Normal, ORM) there is a recommended DDS compression to use to match with the game. I did a quick search in the Discord server from my signature ("Retera Model Studio Users Group") and the following message was posted in that server publicly courtesy of @ShadiHD :

1. dxt 1 - diffuse
2. 3dc - normal
3. dxt5 - diffuse with alpha or orm (edited)

Some users like @Symphoneum have provided similar useful information on there, although it is not my intention to be an advert for Discord which is why I'm happy to search up and copy the list of suggested compressions here above as well.

2. The GeosetAnim can do what you are asking but there is a second set of visibility data in the Layer chunks that is probably loading some bad data, maybe copied from some other model. If you set it all to 1 like you're saying it would probably make those problematic parts of the model always display, but if it were me I might also just entirely delete the Visibility track on the layer unless if you were going to use that for a fade of the body after death like Reforged sometimes does. If you have part of the model that is working, and part that is not, typically it's possible to use the import function or "Edit\delete model components" (which literally just runs the import function on an empty model to import in the current one and reuse those same menus) to convince the "problematic" parts layer to use the visibility of the "good" part. Obviously ideally we would do that operation from the Tracks view but I did not finish the Tracks view.

Retera Model Studio is fully open source software and the entire program code is on GitHub so that users can creative derivative works. Over the last few years, because I did not undertake the technology efforts to upgrade the program as quickly as what was desired by users who wanted improved quality of life for the "Reforged" graphics mode, other people but mostly @twilac created a version of the Retera Model Studio that has a ton of different features and is almost a totally different program but with a similar interface. If you use the Twilac Retera Model Studio it might help for the "Reforged" graphics use case, or so I'm told, but I have barely ever used it myself.

 

[Symphoneum]

Concerning the second issue, this would be easily remedied by using Twilac Retera Model Studio. However, you can also fix this in the mdl text editor within Retera Model Studio. There are two options for visibility, material and geoset. Unless you want to do anything fancy with material animations, I would make all of your material's visibility static. In the mdl text that would mean the material visibility would be set to 1 on all materials. This would eliminate any parts of your model 'phasing' in and out during animations, at least from a material perspective. You would then want to look at the geoset visibility and make sure there aren't any rogue frames referenced in the animations. In the mdl text editor this is quite easy but more time consuming because you will have to read through the chunks for each animation to find the visibility chunk and check all of the values manually. Twilac Retera Model Studio has a simple toggle system that allows you to turn on and off visibility for each geoset. Furthermore, you can edit each geoset and material on a per animation basis for visibility and a variety of other settings using the GUI, hopefully streamlining the process.

The problem with your textures is probably a dds format error. As Retera said, 3dc/ATI2 is the format for normal maps. You need to generate mip maps and use the Mitchell texture filter as well when exporting (it's all in the dds export window). The mip maps and Mitchell texture filter applies to all textures (Diffuse, ORM, Normal, and Emissive).

Really awesome trogg, I look forward to seeing it in action someday!

 

[Symphoneum]

Hello Hive Community,

I'm new to modeling, especially with Retera’s Model Studio. Currently, I'm working on a bunch of Troggs. As the basis for the models, I used the Draenei Guardian. Unfortunately, I’m confronted with some problems which I just couldn't solve.

1. Problem: Normal Map

You can see the first and major problem in the screenshots I took. The first screenshot depicts the model in Retera’s Model Studio, where it works fine. In the map editor and in-game, it looks glossy – particularly those textures I messed around with.

View attachment 446208

View attachment 446209

I guess it’s a problem with my normal map, which I had to change. I also suppose that it has something to do with the file, respectively the file size, as the models with a normal map in .tif format don't look as glossy as those with .dds format. On the other hand, pasting an existing normal map into the normal map file, saving it, and then using it as the normal map for the model didn't result in this glossy appearance.

While searching for the reason, I tested minor changes in the normal map of the human peasant. Essentially, I used the clone tool in GIMP and cloned the pixels to their original place – which should result in an identical looking peasant. While he looked fine in Retera’s Model Studio, he also looked glossy in-game.

View attachment 446210


2. Problem: Geoset Animation

And there is another problem with the Trogg model. It’s losing its hair and teeth, and in one case, even its nose in the other standing animations - sometimes from the beginning of the animation, sometimes while playing the animation. I tried changing the visibility within the GeosetAnim Code by setting the value from 0 to 1 for the animations in question. But somehow this didn't work. I only managed to make certain geosets disappear by setting them from 1 to 0 – but that’s not what I want.



Is anyone familiar with these problems? I would be very thankful for help as I've tried and tried and couldn't solve them myself.
Best regards,
Stonebreaker

I opened up your model to see if I could just quickly make the fixes I outlined above and it is missing the main ORM texture. You may also be having some issues with that texture, it would help to see that one to diagnose the problem.

 

[Symphoneum]

Here's my quick and simple fixes. I have formatted all of the textures in dds and fixed up the visibility issues. You will need to reformat the main ORM. I also deleted some duplicate animations. They were using overlapping keyframes so they were really unnecessary. Hopefully that helps.

 

[Stonebreaker]

Thank you both very much for your fast help. I’ve been quite exhausted with messing around and not finding any solutions. Now I’m motivated to finish the model and maybe create some variations of it.
Thank you, Retera, for the explanations and pointing out Twilac's program. I hadn't even known about it. I'll definitely check it out. And, overall, thanks for laying the groundwork with RMS; that can't be said enough, I believe.

And once again, special thanks to Symphoneum. You've just saved me a bunch of time and frayed nerves by solving the problems by no time at all.