Lo-Fi Games

I've made a replacement texture for a race using GIMP, but in-game it appears ridiculously glossy. VampireTeddyGram also mentioned experiencing the same issue w/ his Oni Race Mod'.

The gloss map is contained within the Alpha Channel of the .dds, so I decomposed the image into RGBA (Red, Green, Blue, & Alpha) layers and began messing with that. I read online that white (the current state of the Alpha Channel/ Layer) is registered as max gloss, and solid black (0, 0, 0) won't register.

I make the Alpha Channel a dark grey, and the texture/image becomes, and renders in, solid black.
I try a lighter grey, the texture becomes splotchy, and remains glossy.
I decompose the vanilla texture, take it's Alpha Channel/ Layer, and use that. Texture/ image still becomes and renders in solid black.

Each time I mess w/ either the opacity or the Alpha Channel, I get the same three results.

I'm at a loss of any more ideas, so if anyone has any suggestions or can guide me through the process of reducing/ eliminating the gloss, I will be very relieved.

I have been using GIMP, since Photoshop is unable to import/ use .DDS file types (at least w/o a plugin).

There are three different texture maps in used for Kenshi.

1. Diffuse map
2. Normal map
3. Color/Parts/Mask map

When it comes to human or custom race characters, it is important to note that the alpha channel for diffuse map and normal map texture are affecting different things.

The alpha channel for diffuse map affects the glossiness of the material/texture. White color on the alpha channel is for maximum glossiness while black is on the other spectrum which means if the alpha is in all black, the texture will be non glossy (or matte I guess). Correct me if I'm wrong but the level of glossiness for the texture will change according to the spectrum from white to black.

You don't need to mess with RGB channel for diffuse map. Just need to save it in DXT5 ARGB format if you want it to include the alpha channel. If you save it in DXT1 format with no alpha, I think it will default to max gloss if I'm not mistaken.

The alpha channel for normal map determines what's visible and what's hidden. White color in the alpha channel makes that part of the mesh visible while black will hide it. If you look at the Police Helmet, the part of the face visor with holes in them is done using the alpha channel in the normal map. The holes in the visor is done by having black dots on the alpha channel of the normal map. The same with eye slit for Basket Hat.

For any other textures, alpha channel for the normal map is mostly binary of white or black. White is visible and black is for hidden parts. There is no in between as far as I know.

However, the normal map for the characters (and wildlife) is different from normal map for armors or items.

If you look at the normal map for human character for example you will notice it is in grayscale. Even the alpha channel is in grayscale. I think it is saved in DXT5_NM format.

I'm not entirely sure how it works but if your custom race doesn't come with normal map or it is saved in the wrong format, I think the whole texture will appear messed up in game.

If you're using vanilla mesh and vanilla normal map, saving your custom diffuse in appropriate format with the correct alpha channel will probably gives you the result you're looking for.

Didn't see this until after I fixed it, but you're right - I didn't need to mess with the RGBA layers.

Opacity was being loss during export, because it wasn't saved to the layer, so all I had to do was duplicate the visible layer once I applied the opacity I wanted, and export that using a different format.