this is whats happening

when I decomposed my -da.dds for the mesh that is black in the picture I got this for the red

That paneled texture should be covering most of the screen in a cross shape but for some reason it got covered in black

this is what I got for the green, blue, and alpha channels

ok ill try that

that didnt work,

the ship was still black and showed no windows this time, I opened the dds in gimp to see if the red channel was messed up but this time everything was correct, I also checked the mesh file to make sure it was reading the right texture

It's actually an entity file that controls this with the minShadow and maxShadow settings at the bottom of the file.

When you turn on Ship Mesh Highlight Filter these values are used to add additional light to the mesh. minShadow is when zoomed in and maxShadow is when zoomed out.

You can do this simply by tweaking the data texture and setting these values without having the original model.

Why did I not ask about those lines in the ask a modder thread ages ago before I redid all the textures in the mod. Well Karma for you anyways.

I haven't downloaded your texture files but check your normal map file (.nm).  I don't know what program you use for creating your textures but by default the alpha channel in the nm is blank/black after you run the normal map filter on your .cl.  It took me forever to figure this out as it wasn't mentioned in any of the original modding supplements but you should copy the red channel into the alpha for your .nm.  If the alpha is blank/black in the normal map you get really wierd light reflection/effects on the model and it tends to be extremely dark from almost all angles.

Edit:  Gah... That should say "run the normal map filter on you .cl".  Woops.  Fixed now for any future references.

-dolynick

You colony and carrier ship are not fine... cl texture are rgb in place of rgba... siege-battleship-support are in the good format ( rgba ) but the alpha channel is blank... mean that all the ships surface is team color... if team color was enable in your game setting, the ship in your first pic will not look black but will be green ( team color )...

As dolynick explain , the nm map are wrong ( but not the reason for your dark ship )... cl and da need to be saved in the dxt5 format, nm map in the dxt5n format ( this move copy the red channel to the alpha in a automatic way )...

Finally, none of your .dds have mipmap level ... mean that full texture will always be used, same when your ship is far away and his only a few pixel onscreen...

Next time, when you post a pic for texture problem, enable everything in your game setting ( team color, bloom, etc )... more easy for other to diagnose the problem...

EDIT : your .mesh are wrong too...

TXT
MeshData
    hasValidTangents TRUE

...

    NumVertices 5166
    Vertex
        Position [ 19.942768 24.385151 -368.685944 ]
        Normal [ -0.000000 0.000000 -1.000000 ]
        Tangent [ 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 ]
        Color 0
        U0 0.526143
        V0 0.839205
        U1 0.000000
        V1 0.000000

Tangent was not created in xsi... having it on true when tangent are 0,0,0 and U1/V1 are 0,0 will lead to jumping shadow ingame( shadow jump from one poly to a other poly )...

A quick fix is to set "hasvalidTangents" on "FALSE" and replace all the "V1 0.000000" by "V1 1.000000"... so, the GPU will calculate the tangent on the fly... V1=1 simply define the handiness... value need to be -1 for any flipped poly that you have not correct previously...

For a good fix, return to the xsi stage and calculate the tangent and create the secondary UV set for tangent...

As your model have are not bevel on the edge, it is best to recalculate your normal and use angle weighted normal...

Will be best if your learn to segment, unfold UV map and optimize UV map... there is a lot of surface not used on your map, mean that you have less pixel for make high quality paint job... your UV seem to use axial projection who mean that zone who are not facing one of the axis will have some streching artifact...

There is maybe some other problems but for make a full check, i need the model in .obj format...

Strange that it work... da map is about light, specular, bloom, etc... normaly nm map is created from the cl map ( without the alpha ) in 2d software or by 3D tools like melody who use a low and high poly model...

Nope :

"The primary limitation with bump/normal mapping is that it perturbs only the surface normals without changing the underlying surface itself. Silhouettes and shadows therefore remain unaffected, which is especially noticeable for larger simulated displacements. This limitation can be overcome by techniques including the displacement mapping where bumps are actually applied to the surface or using an isosurface."

Sins .mesh have a field for displacement map but the engine don't use it... with bump/normal map, geometry is not changed, what is modified is the texture apply to the original geometry who give the illussion of relief...

Bump/normal mapping only modify the surface normal who modify how light is reflected...

Well, it is not my job to give a theoric cursus on light/shadow/specular/etc...

will be bookmarking this topic, some nice info here.