Koja Scripts
Cloth Tool

Material Editor

Change each material's shader, texture maps, render bucket and parameters, and generate GTA V-style normal and spec maps from a garment's diffuse.

Material Editor

A model is rarely one surface. A jacket can be leather, cloth and a metal zip, and each part has its own shader, texture maps and settings. The Material Editor lists every material in an item's model and lets you change its shader, its texture maps, when it is drawn, and its parameters. The Normal & spec maps window makes normal and spec maps from the garment's own diffuse texture and writes them into the model the way GTA V's own clothing has them.

Opening it

  • In the item panel, click the Materials tool tile (Shaders and maps).
  • Right-click an item and choose Edit materials….
  • In the Model Studio, switch to Materials (key 6) and press Open the Material Editor. Apply or undo your mesh edits first, because the editor writes the model on disk.

The window

On the left is one row per material, named by its shader and number. A material whose shader the tool cannot name shows as Unnamed shader with its hash. A row you have changed is marked edited. Pick a material to edit it on the right.

Shader

There are two ways to change a material's shader. They do different things.

  • Rename points the material at a different shader and changes nothing else. Type a name into Shader name (known names are suggested) and confirm it. Use this when the parameters are already right and only the shader variant is wrong. The common case is normal_spec against cloth_normal_spec. If you type a name the tool does not know, it is still written, with a warning to check it in game.
  • Replace with template rebuilds the material from a known-good set. Textures whose slot still exists are kept. The templates are: Default (diffuse only), Normal (diffuse + bump), Spec (diffuse + specular), Normal Spec, Normal Detail, Normal Spec Detail, Normal Spec Reflect, Emissive, Cloth Default and Cloth Normal Spec. Keep current leaves the shader alone.

Render bucket

The Render bucket sets when the game draws the surface:

BucketUse
0 · OpaqueSolid fabric. The default.
1 · Alpha blendedSoft transparency.
2 · Alpha testedCut-outs such as lace or mesh.
3 · WaterNot for clothing.
4 · DisplacementNot for clothing.

Anything with transparency needs bucket 1 or 2. Left on 0, it renders solid black where it should be see-through.

Textures

The maps the shader uses are grouped as Diffuse, Normal, Specular, Detail, Tint, Environment and Other. For each one you can:

  • Choose…: pick an image (.ytd, .dds, .png or .jpg) to embed into the model as that map.
  • ✕: remove the map from the material.
  • Rename (pencil): change the texture name the shader looks the map up by. It must match what the .ytd contains.

Maps already packed in the model are marked embedded.

Settings

The shader's single-value parameters (specular power, detail scale and so on) are sliders. Values with several components are shown read-only. The defaults are safe, so only change them if you know the shader.

Applying

Changes are held until you press Apply (it reads Apply to n when several materials have changed). The model in your project is then rewritten in one go, and the result tells you how many materials were updated and how many textures were embedded. There is no undo inside the editor. To go back, make the opposite change.

Normal and spec maps

Many custom garments ship with a flat normal map and no real spec map, so they look like plastic in game. The generator makes both from the diffuse texture, calibrated on the game's own clothing maps.

  1. Open it

    In the item's Textures panel, click Maps in the header. The Normal & spec maps window opens.

  2. Pick the source

    Under From the texture, choose the texture variant to work from. Four previews show the Diffuse, a Lit preview (move the pointer to move the light), the Normal map and the Spec map.

  3. Tune the normal map

    Leave Write the normal map on. Adjust Strength, Detail size, Soften and Dark is raised. Detail size removes the shading painted into the picture so only the fabric's relief is left. Choose a size: 256², 512² (what vanilla clothing uses) or 1024² (four times the memory).

  4. Tune the spec map

    Leave Write the spec map on and pick the fabric: Cotton, Denim, Knit / wool, Nylon / sport, Leather, Satin / silk, Vinyl / latex, Metal or Skin. Then set Shine and Follows the fabric. Choose a size: 128², 256² (the vanilla size) or 512².

  5. Write them

    Press Write into the model.

How the maps are written:

  • They are embedded in the model the way freemode does it: the normal map as DXT1 (green down) and the spec map as DXT5 (R intensity, G gloss), with mips down to 4×4 and power-of-two sizes.
  • They are bound to the bump and spec slots of every ped material in the model. The diffuse in the .ytd is not touched.
  • Making them again replaces the earlier maps without asking.
  • The generator never changes a shader. A material without normal or spec slots keeps its look. Switch it to a normal/spec shader above if you want it to use the maps.

Generated maps or your own?

  • Use the generator when the garment has no real maps, or has flat ones from an export. Woven and printed fabric gives the best results, because the relief the generator finds is really there.
  • Use your own maps when you baked them from a high-poly sculpt or painted them in Substance 3D Painter. Assign them with Choose… in the Material Editor instead. Generated maps cannot add folds that the diffuse does not show.