What happens to refl and glow files?

[daglob]

I just did a quick little scope for Cyclonejoker involving a body transplant between Ultraman69 and Goliath_t and the reflection and glow files quit working. Anyone know why?

[Cyber Burn]

I don't know the exact reason behind it, but it seems to have something to do with the "NiTextureEffect" of the two Meshes not Matching.

[detourne_me]

I think you're right Cyber. It's not too troublesome to make them work again though. you just need to go to the parent node of the parts that you skoped in (even scene root your parts are added directly to it) and check the Num Effects at the very bottom of the Block Details.  It will usually be a 0, 1, or 2.  if it's a 0, you won't get any refl or glow.
So, just add one to it, and make it point to the NiTextureEffect that has a lightmap file NiSourceTexture under it.  You are basically saying that the lightmap now affects those parts you added, so they will now glow and reflect.

[daglob]

I've checked and the NumEffects is 1 on the Scene Root and both the original mesh and the transplant. They reference male_basic_lightmap.

[Cyber Burn]

Does the "NiTextureEffect" of the new Mesh piece match the "NiTextureEffect" of the "Omni01" of the Mesh that you Skoped it onto?

[daglob]

Does the "NiTextureEffect" of the new Mesh piece match the "NiTextureEffect" of the "Omni01" of the Mesh that you Skoped it onto?

I'll get back to you.

[ELECTR0]

I'm stuck on this same problem with my Zangief skope. I can't get a few pieces to refl & i'm pretty sure it's because i'm not pointing to the male heavy lightmap. I even tried to copy/paste & create my own NiTextureEffect on the individual pieces, but it always paste the effect at the bottom of the mesh instead of on the added mesh piece. So i'm lost.

[Cyber Burn]

Different Meshers set up their Meshes differently. Unfortunately, this makes replacing the Refl and the Glow a bit difficult at times. Without seeing the Skope itself, it's kinda hard to give solid advice on this one.

[detourne_me]

I'm stuck on this same problem with my Zangief skope. I can't get a few pieces to refl & i'm pretty sure it's because i'm not pointing to the male heavy lightmap. I even tried to copy/paste & create my own NiTextureEffect on the individual pieces, but it always paste the effect at the bottom of the mesh instead of on the added mesh piece. So i'm lost.

Yup, that's what happens when you paste it, it will go to the bottom, but that's a good thing. I consider the bottom of the list to be a kind of pocket, or spare storage area. Those things there are extra, and won't hurt the character.nif, and you can call them up into use later if you want to add a refl or glow map to something that doesn't have one.
What you want to do is go to the node above the piece you put in, the parent of the node, if you will. And check the Num Effects. So, if for example you added a gun to Bip01 R Hand, and the gun has no effects, you have to add an effect to the Bip01 R Hand node, and then point that to the same NiTexture Effect that works for other parts of the mesh.

[daglob]

Comparing the NitextureEffect under Omni 1 and the new mesh, the only differences I can see are that Goliath has 40 Num Affected Node List Pointers and Ultraman has only 1. They reference two different copies of Male Basic Lightmap, but the reference numbers match up to the block number of each lightmap.

Is there any way to widen the number column of the blocks? It's hard to read any number over 99.

[Cyber Burn]

Can you post a Pic of what you're seeing? I'm a Visual Learner, I won't understand unless I see it.

[daglob]

Just as an experiment, I made the Ultraman mesh reference the same lightmap as Goliath. It didn't work.

[Cyber Burn]

I was going to try and replicate what you were doing to see what was going on, but I don't seem to have the "Goliath_T" Mesh, nor can I find it in any of Tom's Yahoo Groups, or on his or Alex's Websites. 

[ELECTR0]

I got mine working! In the spine node I referenced 19 in the effects & everything started going shiny. I noticed on the belt piece that the reflection was working before, it had 19 in the effects, so I tried it. Thanks for the help!

[daglob]

Just for your information: I tried making the same scope with FFv3R meshes, and the same thing happened.

[Cyber Burn]

OK, this is the Skope that you sent me.

Notice your "Omni01", and right under it is your "NiTextureEffect", which in this case, is "150".


Now, I'm not quite sure why there are 2 "Male_Basic" pieces here, but but the one I highlighted is the active one. Going to your Block Details, and looking at your effects, you'll see that your "NiTextureEffect" is "512", which doesn't match the "150" from before.


We'll change that "512" to a "150", so that the "NiTextureEffect" of the "Male_Basic" piece you added now matches the "NiTextureEffect" of the "Omni01".


Check your Mesh in CTool, and the Reflections should work fine.

[Cyber Burn]

Oops forgot...

Sometimes you'll come across a situation where, for example, in that first Pic, you'll have 2 "NiTextureEffect" Nodes, each with a different Number. Lets say you have one that is "150", like in the Pic, and another that is maybe "300".

So in the second Pic, you would go into the Block Details like I did, but right above where I have hi-lighted, you'll see "Num Effects" with a Value of "1", right above the Green arrow. Change that "1" to "2" and then Click on the Green arrow. A second "NiTextureEffect" will now appear there.

You would then change the first "NiTextureEffect" to "150", and the second "NiTextureEffect" to "300".

You should now match the "NiTextureEffect" Nodes under the "Omni01". Check your Mesh in CTool, and you should be good to go.

[detourne_me]

Excellent breakdown CB!

[Cyber Burn]

Excellent breakdown CB!

I take no credit for that, you guys have taught me well! 

[SickAlice]

A shortcut if you find yourself in a real pickle and/or time constrained just repoint the piece at another that does already work and shares the same values and textures. After you did that any files attached to the previous should pop out at the end of the nif file and your free to delete them. Also a great way to keep the size down, guilty as charged here I know but on my current stuff I've been working more to have parts share a value rather than have their own. Another shortcut when dealing with effects of course is to put them on the Scene Root, like lighting for example. This way everything already has those values assigned to it and you needn't double check or add anything.