Making Use of the Skyrim Shaders

In the past, I've never really wondered why my normal maps were pretty much useless. Well, maybe I did once or twice, but I always just assumed this was a problem with the in-game rendering or some other contributing factor. That is, until recently when someone fixed one of my models (Spellsword Cuirass - see below post) and then the normal map DID show up in-game.

So I looked online for reasons why my models weren't rendering properly! And what I found out was this: I had been using a bad BSLightingShaderProperty (it wasn't set up correctly) and the BSNum UV Sets was on 1, instead of 4097 (which Skyrim recognises). I guess that'll teach me not to use the iron weapons as a base.

Anyway, what does this all really mean? Well, it means that I can now produce higher quality, more detailed work. Let me show you:

This is Crecy, the sword I uploaded about a week ago. But this time, it is set up right, and you can immediately see the difference in the quality of the metal. Of course, it still requires more tweaking (far too much bump in the normal map) but it's a big step forward!


EDIT: And now I think I have adequately tweaked the normal map of Crecy.

Haven't updated the mod page yet, but I will soon.