Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Vengence on October 11, 2007, 02:47:45 pm

Title: Normal maps and others
Post by: Vengence on October 11, 2007, 02:47:45 pm
I can make them for sure, but for some reason the ones I make are not showing in fs2. All they do it seems is darken my models. I'm pretty sure something is missing but I don't know what. I am using the Nvidia Normal map filter and it is loaded with options and compressions for the DDS export. How do I set these settings to get my normal maps to work? Same question with height maps, what format and settings do I use for them to work?
Title: Re: Normal maps and others
Post by: Bobboau on October 11, 2007, 04:45:19 pm
you need to move the green channel to the alpha channel and the red channel to the green channel, red and blue are ignored in our (taylor's) implementation. the green chanel should look like it's lit from below, the the alpha should look like it's lit from I think the left.
Title: Re: Normal maps and others
Post by: Vengence on October 11, 2007, 04:50:37 pm
This applies to the height map too right? But how do I move channels?
Title: Re: Normal maps and others
Post by: DaBrain on October 11, 2007, 05:48:53 pm
Or don't change anything and save the map with the DDS Plugin for Photoshop.

Just save the map as DXT5_NM map. They will look different and I first thought they actually were different, but for FS2, they are just the same, cause it looks into two channels only anyway.
Title: Re: Normal maps and others
Post by: Vengence on October 11, 2007, 07:07:35 pm
. . . I specifically SAID that I already USE that Nvidia DDS plugin. And I got similar results, darkened model with no normal mapping. However the only thing I didn't do was that form of compression.
Title: Re: Normal maps and others
Post by: Water on October 11, 2007, 07:36:56 pm
Seen the new height map setting and thought things had been changed around. (ooops)

Using xNormals hight map to normal converter
I set the swizzle to X+  Y-   Z- and put the height map in the Alpha.

The result looked really good in the lab. No problems with the mirroring. Now I have to figure out why. (uncompressed map though)