Thanks
Yes, that's my understanding of the emissive settings in Nifskope (a freeware mesh editing tool) -the multiple determines the intensity of the glow.
I didn't want to bring normal or specular maps into things, as they have no relevance here.
In regards to the glow map, I understand generally how glow maps work but, here, neither the vanilla nor the modded version made any visual difference. And neither did clearing the texture from the entire white area. Any way you slice it, the glow map seemed to have no effect on the visible texture in the least. I guess "cutouts" are better referred to as transparencies.\
Edit: on further testing, blacking out the entire emissive area of the glow map (if that's the right term i.e. the entire map is solid black) and even deleting the glow map completely had no effect. It really seems that the glow effect is coming solely from the secondary dial portion of the diffuse, using the emissive colour/multiple settings from the mesh and the glow map is playing no part in things at all.
As well, blacking out the entire secondary dial portion of the diffuse resulted in the radio showing the exact same dial turned on as turned off, despite the glow map being active. No glow and no smudging of the letters or numbers.
So... at this point my surprising (to me anyways) conclusion, based solely on my observations from trial and error, is that:
1. The glow map has absolutely no impact on the radio model and could have been excluded. (Odd but considering there's a multitude of bugs in this game, maybe not out-of-this-world surprising.); and
2. When the radio is activated, both the main dial and secondary dial portions of the diffuse map come into play. The secondary dial provides the glow, but it acts like a layer underneath the main dial portion. In effect, it is the glow map. The purpose of the transparencies in the secondary dial portion of the diffuse is to ensure that the numbers & letters remain legible by preventing emission from those areas so the numbers & letters on the main dial portion look like they would with no glow at all. But that makes it critical that those transparencies accurately line up with the features of the main dial. Where there's inaccuracies, the numbers & letters on the main dial portion of the diffuse are able to block some of the emitted glow from that underlying (secondary dial) layer but only to a certain extent. Some glow still gets through and the result is the smudging around the numbers and letters on the main dial that don't have precisely matching transparencies. (And, in other places, too much glow gets through.)
I know I'm a noob, but it really seems to me that this is what's happening. It's the only thing that makes sense to me given the characteristics of the main and secondary dial portions of the diffuse, the characteristics of the glow map (both modded and vanilla), and what I'm seeing in my tests. Of course, I would still welcome comments from anyone else who would like to chime in.
Edit: 3rd conclusion
I'm guessing that another way to manage the glow effect on this model would be to path the mesh records that contain emissive data to the glow map rather than the diffuse, which would render the secondary dial portion of the diffuse as useless as the glow map is currently. And then the glow map would have to incorporate the same (but more precise) transparencies currently in the secondary dial portion of the diffuse. But at this point that's just a guess and, even if correct, might simply be a "six of one half dozen of the other" alternative.
Yes, that's my understanding of the emissive settings in Nifskope (a freeware mesh editing tool) -the multiple determines the intensity of the glow.
I didn't want to bring normal or specular maps into things, as they have no relevance here.
In regards to the glow map, I understand generally how glow maps work but, here, neither the vanilla nor the modded version made any visual difference. And neither did clearing the texture from the entire white area. Any way you slice it, the glow map seemed to have no effect on the visible texture in the least. I guess "cutouts" are better referred to as transparencies.\
Edit: on further testing, blacking out the entire emissive area of the glow map (if that's the right term i.e. the entire map is solid black) and even deleting the glow map completely had no effect. It really seems that the glow effect is coming solely from the secondary dial portion of the diffuse, using the emissive colour/multiple settings from the mesh and the glow map is playing no part in things at all.
As well, blacking out the entire secondary dial portion of the diffuse resulted in the radio showing the exact same dial turned on as turned off, despite the glow map being active. No glow and no smudging of the letters or numbers.
So... at this point my surprising (to me anyways) conclusion, based solely on my observations from trial and error, is that:
1. The glow map has absolutely no impact on the radio model and could have been excluded. (Odd but considering there's a multitude of bugs in this game, maybe not out-of-this-world surprising.); and
2. When the radio is activated, both the main dial and secondary dial portions of the diffuse map come into play. The secondary dial provides the glow, but it acts like a layer underneath the main dial portion. In effect, it is the glow map. The purpose of the transparencies in the secondary dial portion of the diffuse is to ensure that the numbers & letters remain legible by preventing emission from those areas so the numbers & letters on the main dial portion look like they would with no glow at all. But that makes it critical that those transparencies accurately line up with the features of the main dial. Where there's inaccuracies, the numbers & letters on the main dial portion of the diffuse are able to block some of the emitted glow from that underlying (secondary dial) layer but only to a certain extent. Some glow still gets through and the result is the smudging around the numbers and letters on the main dial that don't have precisely matching transparencies. (And, in other places, too much glow gets through.)
I know I'm a noob, but it really seems to me that this is what's happening. It's the only thing that makes sense to me given the characteristics of the main and secondary dial portions of the diffuse, the characteristics of the glow map (both modded and vanilla), and what I'm seeing in my tests. Of course, I would still welcome comments from anyone else who would like to chime in.
Edit: 3rd conclusion
I'm guessing that another way to manage the glow effect on this model would be to path the mesh records that contain emissive data to the glow map rather than the diffuse, which would render the secondary dial portion of the diffuse as useless as the glow map is currently. And then the glow map would have to incorporate the same (but more precise) transparencies currently in the secondary dial portion of the diffuse. But at this point that's just a guess and, even if correct, might simply be a "six of one half dozen of the other" alternative.