Textures - Modding-Haven/REEngine-Modding-Documentation GitHub Wiki

Similar to most modern game engines, RE Engine uses PBR textures. Shaders and materials are usually setup to use channel packed textures. This means that different types of textures can be stored on the Red, Green, Blue and Alpha channels.

The texture names reflect this i.e.: ALBM stands for AlbedoMetallic where the albedo texture is using the Red, Green and Blue channels and the metallic map is stored on the Alpha channel.

You can find 2 different set of textures for most models, the ones next to the .mesh are the low-resolution textures usually not larger than 1024x1024. The high-resolution textures can be found in the streaming folder.

Low-Res:
re_chunk_000\natives\STM\_Chainsaw\Character\wp\wp40\wp4000\00\wp4000_00_laser_albd.tex.143221013

Hi-Res:
re_chunk_000\natives\STM\Streaming\_Chainsaw\Character\wp\wp40\wp4000\00\wp4000_00_laser_albd.tex.143221013

Replacing the low-resolution texture with the high-resoultion texture will force the game to always load the hi-res file. This can make packing mods simpler because you don't have to include the streaming folder in your mods. However, forcing the streaming textures can impact performance, so it is recommended that you include high- and low-resolution textures in your mods.

After extracting the game files you can preview, export and convert .tex using Noesis.
To do so follow these steps:

• Download and extract Noesis

  • Rename Noesis.exe to Noesis32.exe and the Noesis64.exe to Noesis.exe

• Download and extract RE-MESH-Noesis-Plugin

  • Copy the fmt_RE_MESH.py file to your [Noesis Installation Path]/plugins/python] folder.

• Opening a .tex file with Noesis will automatically load it, once the plugin is installed.

---

• You can export textures by right-clicking on the texture and selecting Export or alternatively File > Export

• In the 'Export Media' popup window you can choose the format you want under the 'Main output type' dropdown menu.
  TGA or DDS are the recommended formats, because most other formats won't preserve the Alpha Channel correctly.

To properly edit and export RE Engine textures it is highly recommended to use Photoshop, because of the channel packed nature of the textures and some plugins that will make editing textures easier. The following part will assume that you somewhat know your way around Photoshop and have a basic understanding of how textures work.

TGA is a lossless format and is overall a more consistent format to work with, it is also natively supported by Photoshop, the only downside is that TGA files are much larger than DDS files. On the other hand DDS is a lossy format, and you'll need either the Intel Texture Works Plugin or Nvidia Texture Tools to work with DDS files in Photoshop.

---

• To import a TGA file just go to File > Open and select the file you wish to edit.

• Once imported you should see something like this:

• If you don't have the Channels tab you can enable it in Window > Channels

• After you are done editing go to File > Save a Copy or use the hotkey Alt + Ctrl + S, for the Targa Options always select 32 bits/pixel

• Open the newly exported texture in Noesis and you should see something like this:

• Right click on the .tga file and select Export in the "Export Media" popup window choose the extension of the original .tex file. In this example we are converting to a RE7RT texture so .35 will be set for the "Main output type"

• In the "Export over tex" popup window select Browse and choose the original .tex file to export over by clicking Open. Click OK in the "Export over tex" window and you should be done.

Here you can find a list of what each abbreviation stands for. Textures are going to be in channel order from left to right: Red, Green, Blue and Alpha. If only 2 textures are shown assume that the first texture takes up the Red, Green and Blue channels and the second texture goes on the Alpha channel unless stated otherwise.

Albedo is sometimes called Base Color. The Dielectric texture is an inverted Metallic map, where black is metallic.

---

Albedo is sometimes called Base Color. Metallic or Metalness is a black and white mask texture where white is metallic.

---

Four mask textures where the Alpha channel stores a Cavity map.

---

Same as ATOS/ATOC but the Alpha channel is used to store a dirt mask.
*In the example below the Red and Green channels are unused.

---

ATOS is made up of 4 black and white mask textures, where the Alpha channel stores an SSS map.
Often only the Blue channel is used for Ambient Occlusion.

---

---

Three different mask textures and an AO map for the Alpha, most commonly used for environment assets.

---

The normal map's format is DirectX. Which means that the Red channel corresponds to the X component of the surface normal vector and the Green channel to the Y component. The Blue channel would hold the Z component of the surface vector but since we are in 2D that is omitted and because of that it should be left as white.

Channel	Texture
Red	Normal X
Green	Normal Y
Blue	N/A
Alpha	Roughness

---

Same as NRRC but instead of a cavity map on the Blue channel it stores an alpha mask texture.

Channel	Texture
Red	Roughness
Green	Normal Y
Blue	Alpha
Alpha	Normal X

---

Mostly found in newer RE Engine titles and the first type of texture that doesn't follow the channel naming scheme.

Channel	Texture
Red	Roughness
Green	Normal Y
Blue	Cavity
Alpha	Normal X

---

---

Same as NRRC but instead of a cavity map on the Blue channel it stores a translucency mask texture.

Channel	Texture
Red	Roughness
Green	Normal Y
Blue	Translucency
Alpha	Normal X

---

---

---

One of the rarest texture types in RE Engine games, where the RGB channels are used to store vector directions and the Alpha channel is used as mask.

---

 
 Back to Top
   
 Return to Home Page