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In Neverwinter Nights EE, MTR files take precedence over TXI files. This information is only included for reference.

The theory behind the TXI system is to attach properties to a certain texture. When a texture is loaded in game, the engine looks for an accompanying TXI file - recognized by having the exact same name as the texture but with the TXI extension. If the game engine does not find a TXI file, it simply loads the texture by itself. Inside the TXI file can be one or more attributes assigned to the texture, such as texture warping (for water and lava), environment mapping effects, animation, etc.

Note this is a work in progress page - if Bioware didn't use it it probably won't work well/at all, while if they did we might have some notes below on how it works.

Table of Contents

Material Specific Fields

These fields go in the TXI file for the base texture. That is, do not specify these fields in the bumpmap or environment map TXI files - they will be ignored.

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bumpmaptexture shinywater

BumpReplacementTexture

This seems to actually load a different texture file for a given texture reference. You could use a dummy file (a 1x1 texture file) have the TXI with this in it and then it loads the final texture

Archived tutorial on the usage that needs recreating on this wiki by OldTimeRadio shows this can be used to mix PLT and DDS on the same model (although not the same node).

This can now be achieved also by shaders.

EnvMapTexture

Specify an environment map for static geometry. Dynamic geometry uses the environment map provided on the model. Default is no environment map.

envmaptexture myenvmapname

Note: A texture specified here overrides the ENVMAP setting in Appearance.2da.

It also enables environment mapping if not enabled by default, for instance Player and Creature Accessories Using ProgFX Type 12 may need it to accurately have PLT shiny vs. translucency be applied - use envmaptexture default for it to follow the area setting (as per appearance.2da does) or chrome1 is a reasonable "default" envmap (used at chargen).

Blending

Specify a blending mode for a material . (ie how transparency is dealt with). This blending mode will override the standard mode. Options are "additive", "punchthrough", "default", and "lighten". Default Default is default.

blending default

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Used for transparency (e.g. grass, hair, etc.).

Lighten (hold on a second - this doesn't seem to be valid? - needs further testing - Jasperre)

Used for textures without an alpha channel, makes any pixel colored black transparent..

Alphamean

Specify a transparency setting for a material. This determines how much to “fade out” the alpha channel of the texture.

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These fields are applied to the texture being read in. Some are specific to different types of textures (like bump maps) and will be ignored if the TXI belongs to a texture which is not of the same type. I will try to document these cases.

Cube

Defines that the associated texture is a cubemap. Allowed values are 0 or 1. Default is 0.

cube 1

Decal

Renders the texture on top of anything it's flush with. Black areas of texture will be transparent. Allowed values are 0 or 1. Default is 0.

decal 1

DefaultWidth / DefaultHeight

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Specify the procedural type. Only use this if a texture needs to be generated procedurally. Options are "water", "life", "perlin", "arturo", "wave" or "wavecycle". Default is no procedural type.

Note each one does something different:

life - unused in the base game "Animates a life texture using the rules of the game of life." "This controller will use, but does not require, that the texture have an image. If an image exists, the initial life state will be set on for a texel if the pixel's red value > lifethreshold (75). Otherwise, a texel will be set on with a probability of lifeprobability% (60)."
perlin - unused in the base game "This controller generates a Perlin noise function water-like texture."
arturo - this moves the texture around a little - Globe of Invulnerability for instance (fxpa_globe.txi). "Initializes a wave approximation texture suggested by Erik de Neve of Epic. This texture is generated using a function described by Arturo R Montesinos in a 1994 demo."
wave - unused in the base game - "Initializes the water texture controller by initializing the velocities array to zero, and the positions array to the heightmap. This controller does not require an image to be present in the texture, but will use one if it is provided."
cycle - cycles through frames, used for things like fire, eg fxpa_flame01

Old ones no longer in use:

water - this used to animate a texture like water, now replaced by shaders and nonfunctional

Code Block
proceduretype arturo

DownSampleMax / DownSampleMin

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Specify whether to mipmap the texture. Valid values are 0 (off) or 1 (on) Default mipmap is on.

mipmap 0

Clamp

Specify the number of pixels that the texture can wrap. which axes the texture cannot wrap on. Valid values are 0, 1, 2, or 3. 1 clamps the X-axis, 2 clamps the Y-axis, and 3 clamps both the X and Y axes. Default is 0, allowing all axes to wrap.

clamp 3

Filter

Specify whether to filter the texture using linear filtering or not. If set to 0, filtering is nearest, otherwise it is linear. Default filtering is linear.

...

Specify the gamma correction for this filter. Default gamma correction is 1.0.

gamma 0.5

BumpMap - DEPRECIATED

Specify whether this texture is a bumpmap. If this flag is set, the texture module will expect to read in a texture which is grayscale. Default is 0.

bumpmap 1

IsDiffuseBumpMap / IsSpecularBumpMap - DEPRECIATED

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0

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isdiffusebumpmap 1

isspecularbumpmap 1

BumpMapScaling - DEPRECIATED

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.

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bumpmapscaling 1.5

SpecularColor - DEPRECIATED

Specify a color for specular bumpmap highlights (RGB). This value is modulated with the bump mapping light's color to produce the final highlight color. Default is (1,1,1).

specularcolor 0.5 0.5 0.8

General Texture Controller Specific Fields

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The following field indicates whether to distort an image using the procedure. This is used for water, lava and all that good 2002 "animated texture" stuff. If this field is set to 1, it requires that an image be provided for this texture. Also, if this value is set to 1, all channelscale and channeltranslate values will be ignored. Default is set to 0.

Note the maximum texture size for using distort 1 is 256x256 (anything above may crash the game) - this is a hardcoded limited in the game engine itself. An alternative is to use spritesheets and emitters. The frame to be used is selected in the emitter properties, not the TXI however.

distort 1

DistortAngle

If this value is set to 1, the texture distortion occurs in an angular fashion. If 0, distortion occurs in a linear fashion. Both are valid but can produce different distortion effects. Default is set to 0.

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arturowidth 17

arturoheight 17

Deprecated Fields

These set of fields no longer work in NWNEE but did early on in its lifetime. They are read into the engine but are unused by it.

Instead look at Enhanced Lighting Engine and PBR and MTR files for adding normal/height/specular/roughness maps for texrures.

BumpMap - DEPRECATED

Specify whether this texture is a bumpmap. If this flag is set, the texture module will expect to read in a texture which is grayscale. Default is 0.

bumpmap 1

IsDiffuseBumpMap / IsSpecularBumpMap - DEPRECATED

Specify what kind of bumpmapping this bump map will do: specular, diffuse, or both. These values are ignored if this texture is not a bump map. Default: isdiffusebumpmap 0, isspecularbumpmap 1