That offset does what?
Whether you’re editing EBX files or writing configure scripts, you have to deal with offsets. The names are unhelpful and ambiguous, and unless you’re a trained in cinematography, you probably have absolutely no idea what a fresnel is or how specularity can change your life. And don’t get me started on the inspired names that start with “TintColor”. TintColor... what? TintColorHelmet? TintColorGloves? TintColorBackground?
Anyway, I figured out the whole TintColor thing a while ago.
TintColor1 is always Cloth Slot 1.
TintColor2 is the only leather color, so that’s one thing you don’t have to worry about. With cloth, it’s only present when the material is textured. It’s the pips in samite and Infused Vyrantium Samite, the cracks between the clumps of lambswool and Everknit Wool, and a bit of sheen in King’s Willow Weave. Since it has its own name, you’d think it’s some kind of big deal or something, but the only way I was able to see it at all was to blow the texture up 10 times and get out the magnifying glass. Make it the same as your other colors and you’ll be fine.
Tint Color 3 is always Cloth Slot 2.
What is fresnel, anyway? Well, technically, it should be capitalized, since it’s some guy’s actual name, and it’s pronounced fray-NELL, but you’re never going to have to pronounce it, trust me. You know how a folded terrycloth towel is lighter along the folds or how a piece of draped velvet is brighter along the creases? It’s because light reflects off the greater surface area of the pile in those steeply-angled regions, and it looks lighter. So the higher the fresnel, the more shine you get around the edges. Take a look at what happens when you set the fresnel at 10. The base color is black and the fresnel color is white.
Oooh, silvery! I haven’t tried going over 10, but there’s little point. A value of 100 might crash the game, but are you ever going to go that high?
There are two flavors of fresnel, primary and secondary. Primary corresponds with Cloth Slot 1 and secondary corresponds with Cloth Slot 2. In the image below, I’ve set primary fresnel to red and secondary fresnel to blue. Both are set at FresnelEnable=10.
Both of these images are cotton, by the way. You can change the attributes of any cloth.
ColorSpec is a measure of the specularity, and you’re only ever going to be able to change the value. Specularity is what happens to reflected light when you view it head on. When you sear your retinas by pointing your headlights at a reflective road sign? That’s because reflective tape has a high specularity. You get the most bang for your buck for values between 0 and 1. After 1, you get sharply diminishing returns. The material is cotton again, and the color is set at 20% red so you can see the changes clearly.
ColorSpec=0
ColorSpec=1
ColorSpec=5
ColorSpec=50
Is there even a difference between 50 and 5? I can’t tell.
Anyway, ColorSpecPrimary and ColorSpecSecondary obey the same rules as fresnel: Primary=Cloth Slot 1, Secondary=Cloth Slot 2. Here, I set the specularity at 0 for Primary and at 1 for Secondary.
The difference is obvious.
At this point, there’s only one crafting material question left to answer: Why is everything listed twice? I thought it was because there are fully-textured and flat-textured versions of everything, like for Cloth Slot 2, how the collar is textured but the sash is not. I was wrong.
I wasn’t mucking around with fresnel or ColorSpec here. I know how that works now. I was meddling only with TintColor. I set the first instance at red and the second at blue. The results were surprising.
Apparently, the first iteration is a freeloader, and the second iteration does all the heavy lifting.
Notice how the only red thing here is a tiny band on the bow? Yeah, it’s all the second set of values. But it isn’t that simple. When you craft an item, sometimes, other values are filled in by default. When you make the Inquisitor’s Hat, it’s two cloth slots. When you select the first one, you get this:
But then when you put cotton in the second crafting slot, you get this:
About the only time you will ever see the first set of values is when you craft something like the Orlesian Helmet, where the plumes retain their default value.
Anway, I hope some of you find this useful. It’s always good to know which offsets do what.