Anyone familiar with using GIMP and the DDS converter to convert face textures to dds files that Oblivion can use?

Which DXTc format should I use? DXT3 or DTX5? Create mipmap or no? (I know I have to create a normal map so the face will reflect light in game) Should I 'save Alpha' and add dithering. http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Image:DdsConverterOptionsDialog.jpg are the options I'm refering to.

I think I've found just about every tutorial, but they vary in specificness, and the only ones that go into detail about retexturing don't talk about faces...
This one talks about http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Better_Retextures_:_Detailed_Guide_For_NifSkope_and_the_GIMP#Normal_Maps
and the other Wiki does a blue bed retexture.

This one discusses the creation of http://sites.google.com/site/grimdeath9740/tutorial:createyourownrace

These are all excellent guides, but they don't go into detail on what options work best for faces. I am a decently creative person/artist, and (usually) pretty good at figuring stuff out for myself, but I know few technical details about texturing and could use help. For example, I would think you would want an alpha channel, but you don't necessarily want transparent holes or blotchy areas on your face texture, so I am still a bit confused about it. :wacko:

I'm surprised no one has a good texturing tutorial specifically for Faces, b/c I haven't even gotten to the really in depth stuff like creating the aging textures and morphs for the face gen sliders. See, I know a little, but it's alot to absorb in a short time and I know experience will help, but if someone out there is an expert on this stuff and can give me a few pointers, it would help tremendously! :bowdown:

Trial and error will get me there eventually, but with a myriad of different options, I could be here for a while unless any of you experts want to share your tips...? :hubbahubba:

Well, finally got back to it and was able to get it to work! I was surprised when the face actually showed up okay first try.

However, I noticed the ears are a slightly different color... the other races all use the same human ear texture so I see no reason to unpack the ear, drag it into GIMP and change the color to match my face texture... I just did like the tutorial said and painted over the ear in my face texture with a bit of color from the eye area, so I don't think it's that.

Maybe I am using the wrong settings to export the texture or to create the normal map? Currently (with DDS Converter 2) I use: DXT1A for the basic face texture, and DXT3 (with alpha channel) to create the Normal Map. Should I maybe use DXT1C for the face texture instead or DXT5 for the Normal map?

Surely someone here knows this stuff??? Should I post this in the Mods Forum? :confused:

I'm not positive but I believe the ears use a seperate texture - the NIf for the ears is located in the imperial folder for the human races named earshuman.nif that uses the facegen\ears\human\EarsHuman.dds and not the face texture !

I would recommend using DXT5 for the normal over DXT3.

DXT3 only saves this grey scale for the spec map= http://www.tedfelix.com/Photography/Big%20Grey%20Scale%20Original.png

DXT5 Interpolates those, so you can have a soft gradient.

Unless you want a sharp gradient to your spec, there is no reason to use DXT3. Even then you can actually make you spec map sharp, and save as DXT5, which leaves you actual controll over what is happening in your alpha channel. instead of leaving it up to dxt compression to know what is best. it can't beat an artists eye

For this particular texture, being that of an human face, never will the specular be sharp and only contain the 16bit gradient. It'll be softer. If you use a DXT3 on there you will only degrade the look of your character in game, making the fact its is just pixels much more apparent.

I noticed all the human races use the same Imperial ear NIFs (even Redguard, if I recall) but somehow the ears get colored the same as the face skin tone in the vanilla races. I think I just need to blend the outer skin to be lighter until it matches up (as closely as possible) with the ears and body. I don't know why it changes tone for all the other races, though. Maybe it's an issue with my conversion selections...


Ahh. Thanks. That should help a bit. I'll have to do another conversion and see how it comes out. Maybe this is adding to the problem I'm having matching the face to the ear and body texture. I am not so overly optimistic to think it will solve all the problems though.

There is a weird darkening around the neck and beard area. I believe it has something to do with the facial hair on the texture. For some reason FaceGen (not Oblivion, b/c it was already like this) feels the need to color the beard area - maybe to soften the contrast between the dark color of the facial hair and the light tone of the skin(?). I noticed the face I did without facial hair came out alot lighter in the neck region. I have been playing with sliders to see if I can take some of that out but then it does weird things to the rest of the skin texture, especially the lips. I guess I can edit the texture myself, but it's going to take alot of work to get it right (I get to learn how to use GIMP's 'dodge'(/burn) function...

Thanks for the replies, they are helpful; I've still got tons to learn, so feel free to share any other tidbits of wisdom! :nod:

I knew there were experts hiding around here somewhere. :ninja: