[ART] Blender 2.66a .DAE export problem

[Rapture]

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I guess that sounds a lot more than I feel like doing, I've been using my Normal maps as the Norm & Spec maps, is that alright? They look fine I suppose, their are some issues mostly at the seams does the Spec maps tends to have problems.

@Computer
(2) For some reason during the copying of the "diffuse" material, it will make the picture black at the exported folder location. I don't bake the diffuse materials.

(2a) Apparently it names the ".mat" file after what I have for the primary diffuse color I guess.

EDIT: "Include UV Textures" I stupidly checked this on, not thinking what it does. I kept getting these junk "Untitled" duplicates and that what was screwing up my .mat files. Because I had a left a UV Bake in the UV menu.

I think the triangles appearing might be because I baked my HighPoly Quad mesh onto a non-triangulated LowPoly model and the computer is picking up on microscopic differences in the Normals. I'm gonna try Triangulating the LowPoly mesh and see if the results are better.

[Acies]

I would not suggest using your normal maps as spec maps. Image example:


The bottom part is the red channel from a normal map, while the top part is a spec map. As you can see the normal map lacks a lot of detail. It's also too bright, even for the metal texture of this model. Putting that spec on a wood texture would be even worse :]

In case you would want to make your own spec maps I suggest you start with a "single color" (no details) value for green/red then load that into modelview and reload the model as you test new values. Just working with different tones until you find for example r/g/b = 80/80/80 on the red channel and r/g/b = 120/120/120 on the green channel might be a good specular base for that metal object you have made. Once you have "a base" which you like you can save that file as "a standard" for the next time you make something of a similiar material.

The next step would be copying details from normal/diffuse/displacement (if you have that) onto your base specular and gloss. You can also paint these details in.. For example edge scratches, dirt etc.

Also, DDO (http://quixel.se/ddo/) is a great tool in case you just want to get some good values for specular/gloss maps. It's also a great for "a lazy texturer".. erhm that would be me. I do believe however that just by looking at the maps it creates one might get a better understanding of how to construct different texture maps.

Cheers & good luck!

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I guess that sounds a lot more than I feel like doing, I've been using my Normal maps as the Norm & Spec maps, is that alright? They look fine I suppose, their are some issues mostly at the seams does the Spec maps tends to have problems.

Well, you'll probably get a better result by using a plain grey map intead of the normal map, like acies said, or if you want a bit of detail, by making your diffuse map greyscale in Photoshop and then cranking up the contrast. (don't make it too bright ) With how your diffuse looks, that method should give you some nice edge highlights.