So, here is the thing, this thread
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=90977.0 made me remember something i wanted to ask since a long time ago:
freespace right now is using these weird normal maps with the alpha and green channels
now, with the rendering engine being reworked for PBR anyway, is there any chance to change the whole thing to use the default red and green channels, like in any other game?
as far as backward compability is concerned: specific reflection PBR map is here = use new way, else use old way, done!
right now with the maps using the alpha channel, not only are they totally different from every other game out there, making everything harder for artists than it needs to be, but MOSTLY, you need to use a compression format that supports alpha right now, which with using the usual channels you would not! thus, saving valuable texture memory in the process - furthermore, textures without alpha tend to have less compression artifacts from my experience, thus, we would have higher quality normal maps!!
i am aware that the 2 remaining channels in normal maps right now can be used for team colors, but we do already have a specific extra texture for that (which often can be a lot smaller in resolution and still produce good results anyway)