We've got reflective armor and a lot of new work these days takes advantage of the MCP's fixed texture modules, but we're sorely missing something that is begging for these; Windows! As I understand it, every mesh with a window on it would need to be mapped and we'd need the textures to go with them. I had wondered why no one had tackled this and came to the conclusion that perhaps it'd just never crossed anyone's mind.

Most dunmer windows are small, I think this kind of thing would have the most noticeable effect on Imperial style windows.

well, we've got windows glow, but no reflection on it, yes...
thought of it, but just have noob skills at my disposal (yet)

so, nice idea, i'm for it

I could make that, but not sure if it would have a large impact to FPS..

edit: nvm, I'll try playing with it

AOF3's Armor reflect maps, On the Rocks! gloss maps, & Vurt's gloss maps don't seem to have any incredible impact on performance on a modern machine. Nothing is free but I can't imagine it costing too much.

I'd think the biggest issue (beyond the workload) would be the need for compatability between whatever the new windows would be and the other two popular window mods, Windows Glow and Illuminated Windows.

How do those two mods work? I thought Windows Glow just put light sources at the windows at night or something and Illuminated Within somehow changes the texture of the window? Maybe by triggering a mesh in front of the windows?

If they use 'windows meshes' and compatibility is desired, then, you'd just need to alter the meshes so that the reflect/gloss maps get applied to them, too. Not difficult if I've got this right, just a little bit tedious, but I don't think they come with too many meshes if they do at all.

I'm fairly certain both completely replace the meshes/textures of every window in the game.

Windows Glow - at night replace the mesh via script to version with glowmaped windows
Illuminated Windows - use script to adding lights at nights. It's alsoa adding more windows.

yes, they do
or rather, the mesh is replaced at certain times of the day and a glow map shows up at night (or at daytime inside the houses)
a fairly confusing mechanism, not easy to adjust (well, for me, to my liking, that is)

Actually, I'll use bum map, not the gloss map (tho they look similar), and not the reflect map alone (that, alone, looks also like simple plastic wrap on most of the things).

Bump map will work with any windows that will use simple retextures, tho bump mapp requires each texture to have it's unique bump map texture, so any different texture on the window will make the bump map effect look a bit off.

The work around is to make another mod that is compatible with windows glow textures, but I don't know how that mod works, so no idea how will it work together. If the mod adds gloss map it alters the mesh and no bump map is needed in the 1st place.



Yeah, that will certainly make it incompatible, since for adding a bump map I also must alter the mesh. Think I got ahead of myself, since no one actually uses stock textures to actually want to use bump mapped version of them

Chaka, if you are going to do this my suggestion is to not worry about being compatible with everyone's textures and just make your own high res window texture to bump map instead. Reflective windows will look good with any texture pack since 'windows are windows' it's unlikely that anything you come up with will violently clash with any other retexture out there.

Edit: Thanks to everyone for explaining how those two mods work by the way.

yepp
windows glow already comes with decent textures. currently i don't use WG, but i replaced my window textures with the WG ones.

Did you end up giving these a shot, Chaka?

Not really, haven't found much time for modding yet. Might try next weekend.

I do wonder why no one has done this. I used to swing the camera back and forth staring at Hedgehog-12's gorgeous lanterns. The easy way to do it would be to borrow from that if anyone could ask his permission.

I put few things together now after all, I might upload a test one in a minute

Edit: ok here are the test files. I made a version with stock textures and a high res version, both bump mapped. Both versions replace only 3 common diamond windows for now, if there will be more interest in this I'll make a bigger proper release.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XV6US35C

Chaka ZG => pictures of the windows (your textures) at differents hours of a day:

http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/4062/77453529.jpg
http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/9375/62544534.jpg

http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/909/15200157.jpg
http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/9194/70086116.jpg
http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/9557/11020087.jpg

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/7649/75780340.jpg
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/5213/73569258.jpg
http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/447/98343258.jpg

Thanks for these great textures.

Just one thing, there is no reflections on the windows or it that I don't understand which is significance with the word “reflection” for windows?. :unsure2:

Looks great so far, Chaka. You may want to look at Matilja's http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1092474-the-temple-waterway/page__p__16363808__hl__vivec%20temple__fromsearch__1&#entry16363808. I may be completely mistaken, but I think he managed to include environmental colors somehow? Could just be they're color tinted or something, I forget.

But there are definitely reflect maps on these windows and they look AWESOME. Maybe give them a small amount of color and do a 'vignette' of sorts so that they give the impression of wear?

It's not your fault, they're actually gloss maps(and also a bump map in this case). They specularity is only based on a static image, just try and see if moving the camera affects the shininess?
Those look great! What texture pack are you using Chaka? It looks fab (yours too :tongue: ) I especially like your wood on the door

It's very, very pretty, but totally unrealistic in panes that size. It should approximate medieval technology - not 20th Century float glass! Better would be diamond-shaped leaded lights with all varying colours/reflective/translucent qualities.

On the subject of windows, I just noticed in the CS that from the inside the Vivec Plaza areas (Foreign Quarter at least) apparently have two rows of glass windows all the way around under the dome - that would make sense as a method of getting lighting into the enclosed cantons in daytime. It would be amazing if those particular windows were made to work properly as light sources. If they are meant to be windows, then is the ambient lighting level in the plazas scripted properly to match the time of day? It ought to be.

You sure about that? I rotate them in cs and they reflect. As Merunnin said, you are supposed to move around them, they don't reflect anything if you stand in one place and look at them That's how any reflection in the game works, you gotta move around the object/rotate the object to see how it reflects.



Those are not my screens

Edit: this is the effect you should get when moving around:

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj238/Chakich/ScreenHunter_05Mar100219.jpg
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj238/Chakich/ScreenHunter_06Mar100221.jpg

See how there is a glow on different sides of the windows depending on how much rotated they are?




Since when is Morrowind set in medieval time? I might think of something tho, I can't handpaint so I gotta do what I can with free resources.

:facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm:

:shrug:
What texture pack are you on about then?

His.
Facepalm is for my idiocy, I mean I was quoting and replying to him for pete's sake.
:facepalm: This one's for you

Hahah right then, thank you for your facepalm!