VirtualAngel - Armor Skins (Pack 2) PREVIEW

[virtualangel]

Here is a look at some of the other skins I am working on. Please note this is a preview and they may look different before going live. Due to limitations not everything I dream up can be released.










Mainly I need to finish tweaking the normal maps (the part that gives 2d images a 3d shadow) and I need to make the Tint maps.

[PaulImposteur]

Your texturing is fantastic, I can't wait to see them in Game.

May I ask what Program you are using for your Normal Maps?

[Hoihe]

Love the 1st and the 4th skin!

[TheKai]

I'm a huge fan of number 3. All nice!

[NeOmega]

These are really god. Puts the original game art to shame.

[virtualangel]

Your texturing is fantastic, I can't wait to see them in Game.

May I ask what Program you are using for your Normal Maps?

I use the Nvidia Normal Map Photoshop plug in. Really easy to download and install and Works great. Normal maps are the cream of making good skins. I read lots of tutorials. I am still not very good and I cut and past other NWN2 normal maps to get textures I don't feel comfortable making (like cloth wrinkles).

Love the 1st and the 4th skin!

Thanks! Those are based on Assassin Creed. 4th is The Nightstalker from Assassin Creed 5.

I'm a huge fan of number 3. All nice!

3 is based on Drizzit's leather armor. Needs a little more texture work and some contrast layering.

These are really god. Puts the original game art to shame.

Thank you, having people say stuff like that really makes it worth while. I have always been annoyed at some of the skins that came with the game, they look rushed and not thought out. I wanted to make something that looks more "real". I hope I achieved that.

[PaulImposteur]

Ah never tried that one. Going to have to try it out. I've only used CrazyBump, which I HIGHLY recommend, if you need to frankenstein certain normals.

Thanks for the heads up on the plugin!

[NegInfinity]

I use the Nvidia Normal Map Photoshop plug in. Really easy to download and install and Works great. Normal maps are the cream of making good skins. I read lots of tutorials. I am still not very good and I cut and past other NWN2 normal maps to get textures I don't feel comfortable making (like cloth wrinkles).

No offense, but I highly recommend using blender3d, zbrush or similar software for making normalmaps. Basically, you need to sculpt ultra-high-poly mesh, then make normal map from it using low-poly mesh. The result will be vastly different from what you'll get by using photoshop and gimp. Normalmap created by painting it in 2d editor will almost always look on flat side, and there will be lack of necessary precision/depth in original grayscale map... unless your grayscale image has 16 bit per channel or uses floating point.

Of course, this method is more time consuming.

Example:

Hidden: show

This is a single quad.
Although the image has parallax mapping (without self-shadowing), the lighting is done using normal map.
You can't paint normal map like that in photoshop. Feel free to try.

[deserk]

These are really quite excellent and fanastic. I've waited and daydreamed forever for nice and realistic looking armours like this for NWN2.

Any chance it will make it in the appearance changer, for armour types other than clothing (sttuded leather, chain shirt, full plate, etc)?

Also any chance you might consider releasing it for the rest of the NWN2 community on maybe NWN2 Nexus for example?

[virtualangel]

Yeah... I have been a bad boy. They are all done except for the file cloning, I just need to clone all the races and send Luna all the files.

I will try to do it this weekend.

I have another pack to release as well, I might just combine them. The main problem is I get another idea and move on before finishing the ones I already worked on. lol

As far as other types of armor... I sort of do what I feel like doing at the time. I have been working on looks that are not in the game to diversify the options. There are a lot of plate mail looks already, so I have been avoiding them.

If you see anything (art, images, other games, etc) shoot me a link to the image and I will see if it catches my attention. Keep in mind I am not altering the models themselves, just redoing the texture on the model. So it has to be something that will work with the existing model.