Gaming

I remember trying to alter textures too. Trying to get something to read/write dds files correctly wasn't the most fun I've ever had.
I ended up having to use Gimp and Paint.NET.

I'm using something called XnConvert, but it's still a pain in the donkey, to make a change to a texture in artrage, convert it in Xnconvert, move it to the right folder, load Skyrim, see that it's not looking good, close Skyrim and start over. Rince and repeat for hours.

I didn't plan to change the "normal map" or whatever it is, but the tomatoes don't look right when the reflections are made in the ordinary texture (they are, in the mod) as that gives reflection in the wrong places and it just looks off. Removing reflections makes the tomatoes look like a cross between apples and strawberries though. They're not particularly smooth and shiny. So I started fiddning with the "n.dds" file too. Which is just weird.

Light bits become shadow but if I make the whole texture lighter the tomatoes glow like little lanterns. And no matter what I do I get a visible seam between the two halves.

I've just worked out that Photopea can save dds files too.
I might have used that last time if I'd known.

The only thing I did when I was messing about was to change the colour of an outfit and it was much more effort than I imagined it to be.

Normal maps deal with the bumpiness of things. Shiny stuff is usually a roughness or specular map but I'm not sure if the game engine does all that kind of thing.

I know, but one source when I googled said n meant normal map and another that it affects shininess... and it does seem to do a bit of both. The original texture (mod's original) was kind of grainy, like it had a paper grain on it, and it made the tomatoes look matted. But now they look all silky shiny instead which isn't right either.

After a bit of googling I've seen people saying that the transparency of the normal map affects the shininess.
So you'll have to make sure that you're using the dds format that keeps the alpha channel.
Or something.

You may find that specularity is controlled by the alpha channel of the dds file.

wiki.beyondskyrim.org/wiki/Arcane_University:DDS_Data_Format

I think that's what Val just said...

His post wasn't there when I wrote mine 

But he said it more confidently than I did because he knows what he's talking about.