Category: Guide

[HS][Tutorial] Output 16 bit textures from Blender and dither to 8 bit

Hello guys.

Recently, I’ve been creating smooth normal maps from high poly models, and I’ve started to notice that saving them directly in 8 bit generates a lot of banding. So I wanted to save them in 16 bit directly and then dither down to 8, but the texture was brighter than it should be.

Here’s this small tutorial, thanks to plasticmind, who helped me with the part of fixing the gamma levels of the texture before dithering it down to 8 bit. This makes the texture dithered instead of banded. If you prefer banded, don’t do this, but if you prefer dithering to ugly banding, keep reading.

WARNING: Don’t do this if you’re not sure if your texture is 16 bit, else you could potentially screw it up.

UPDATE: Sadly, I’ve had some problems with normal maps causing seams using this method. If you get seams doing this, you’ll have to directly bake to 8.

Continue reading [HS][Tutorial] Output 16 bit textures from Blender and dither to 8 bit

[HS] Guide(lines) to Import Custom Head Meshes

Necessary software:

  • SB3UGUI (Latest)
  • Blender for 3D editing (I don’t know about others, you’re on your own if you want to use any others), 2.8 is untested but it should work (not so sure about the scripts in this post though).
  • Any good image editing software. Photoshop works, and I guess GIMP too.
  • If you’re using Photoshop, you’ll need to get the DDS plugin for it. https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-texture-tools-adobe-photoshop

Before we begin, I want you to know that this tutorial won’t do you any good if you don’t know the basics of Blender, and that includes handling skeletons.

Also, note that you need some experience modding. This guide won’t cover any of the basics, so don’t expect to see extensive solutions to simple things like an exception because you forgot to parent your head to the skeleton, or morphs not exporting because you left a modifier other than armature on the head mesh (if you don’t know what any of that means, stop trying to do this and go back for simpler things, I recommend starting with basic accessories, then going with skinned accessories, then clothes, and finally heads, this is not something you should be trying with no experience). If you want more in depth information on how to use SB3UG, see Starlene’s tutorial to import clothes.

I won’t cover these here, there’s many tutorials for that on the internet. Either ask, or search for an answer in Google.

Also, have in mind that most of this is more like a general guideline, what you end up importing and how it looks is entirely up to you, your tastes and your ability to make it look alright. Your (and others) mileage may vary.

Well then. Read more after the split.

Continue reading [HS] Guide(lines) to Import Custom Head Meshes