I tried to get some dev input on how they created the fx on some of the textures like chrome, and received no reply so i experimented on my own, and made some startling discovery's.

Well i was playing around today with some of the texture files and discovered this literally by accident. I thought it was in layers in the dds that created the fx, but it is in fact the color channels that all this information is stored. I figured out the "-da" texture is a light map of some sort. It is a light map, but it is also MUCH more, and it is the most important texture next to the color "-cl" texture.

The "-nm" texture is your basic normal map, and should be pretty self explanatory. Its a bump map.

The specular information is in the alpha channel on the "-cl" texture. The brighter areas are the alpha channel, the more "shine" a surface will have. It is what gives ships that "metallic" look.

Now for the "-da" texture. 1st i assumed it was a colored light map, but when i painted on the texture wierd things started happening when i tested it in game. So i looked at the RGB channels, and figured out these things.

The RED channel in the -da texture is the team color. Whatever you paint "red" will show up as whatever team color is picked. Example i filled the entire red channel of the -da texture and this was my result


Oh, it gets better. The GREEN channel in the -da texture is the actual luminosity map (areas of a ship that are lit up). another experiment i gave the kol a glowing team colored engine without the trail using the RED, and GREEN channel on the -da texture.


Im not done yet You want "Chrome"? You got it! Its in the BLUE channel, and the BLUE channel is what gives reflective surfaces. I always wanted a chrone plated ship. The pic doesn't do it justice. You have to move the camera around to see the full effect


OK for the finalle we still have an alpha channel in the -da texture. I thought thats exactly what it was. An ALPHA channel meaning transparency. At 1st so i tried to create a transparent kol. Nope not gonna happen, but i did make something almost better.. A Ghostly glow! Yup, Bloom! The alpha channel on the -da file is the bloom lighting effect.
heres the kol turned into a ghost ship.


I don't think sins uses transparent textures. I haven't seen anything that uses them yet.

I hope this helps aspiring modders of sins with their planning of textures for their models