Nvidia tools are supposedly doing normal maps (automatically?), some filters or something.

Panda[PL]: The problem with specular map is: it needs two channels to work! The texture is 2D, so one channel supplies only information on how the light is applied along one axis.

My advise on normal maps:
1) draw a height map (lighter th color the higher the point), you can use the normal texture here if you're really in a hurry, but I advise making it by hand.
2) use programs like Xnormal to convert it to normal map.
The correct channel settings seem to be:
+x -Y +Z
That's what I find easy and it has one basic advantage: all the software you use is freeware.

Another way would be making a hipoly version and using the program to make the normal map by comparing them. But for that you'll need a “pro” program to make hipoly version.

This is an alright explanation even if the final product looks like crap:
http://www.quake3bits.com/htm/tutorials/creating_bumpmaps_from_images.htm

Here's more information and how to convert from a bump map:
http://www.bencloward.com/tutorials_normal_maps4.shtml

Tutorial for normal mapping:
http://www.bencloward.com/resources_tutorials.shtml

There are also a lot of free normal map tools to derive 3d geometry data, like nvidias melody. These programs create normal maps with the help of high resolution 3d models having billions of polygons.

http://www.3dxtra.cygad.net/list/561/1.htm

http://www.coronach.org/tutorial1.html

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=39&t=479896

D@nte:
http://www.bencloward.com/tutorials_normal_maps1.shtml

http://www.bencloward.com/tutorials_normal_maps10.shtml

http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/normal_workflow.htm

and a tut which shows how to create a bump map with photoshop (you need the nvidia plugin to convert the bump map to normal map)

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=46&t=373024

Use ati tool Normal Mapper to make your normal maps. Download it here:
http://www.ati.com/developer/tools.html

Normal Maps Tutorial by Skaven

Ok, than we start with custom models since applying normal maps to BIS's models takes a long time to do and it's extremely boring because of the hex editing, I just did it once for trying and to be honest I didn't find it that useful if you make good textures, BIS normal mapping will still be working although not as well as custom normal maps.

Ok here we go, good luck! You will need it my English is bad.

I do my normal maps in photoshop but you may do it inside your 3d software, however I'm not a modeler so I will use only the Photoshop tutorial here and to be honest so far and in my opinion the quality seems to be exactly the same.

First thing to do as I told you is to download my RACS addon and to check how I did the config.cpp (Weapons config.cpp), it's really easy you just have to open two classes as you can see from my file and add the correct name for your mapping class/material as well as the correct names for the texture files, being the first ones the

normal textures: *.paa

than the Nvidia mapped textures *_nohq.paa

and last the file that gives the amount of color to the normal map (don't recall the real name of this one but it's not relevant here). _smdi.paa the

What I wrote above covers everything you need to start on the cpp file and it's pretty easy to do, just be careful while writing the config a small mistake on a coma will be enough to won't make it work and you'll take a long time to understand where you made a mistake.

Now the textures themselves.

The first thing you will need to do is to download the Nvidia PlugIn and install it inside photoshop than open all the texture files you want to normal map inside photoshop.

Once in Photoshop you have the filters above, inside of it you will have a new one called Nvidia… press it and you will see a new window, inside of which all I do is to change the percentage of normal mapping. Personally I use values between 3 and 10 but you will have to try this one for each weapon (maybe texture) since it does have a lot to do with the type of colors the textures have as well as to how detailed the models are.

It's really try and error here but I would use a value like 5 for my first try. Press enter or apply and you will see your old texture with the normal mapped filter applied now you save it as *._nohq.paa (just like you did inside the config.cpp file) and you place where you described.

Personally I use a new folder for my normal maps but this is actually a matter of organization you may not feel the need for it.

Once you applied and saved the normal mapped textures (Nvidia Plugin) you want to make the pink textures (the ones I don't recall the name in English).

So to achieve that you will take one of mine and you will copy the pink color from one of my them since that's exactly the pink you will need.

Once you did this, now you will again, open the textures as you did at first (or you may just go to history and go a step backwards so you have your textures like they where initially withouth the Nvidia PlugIn).

With this done you will now open a new layer for each texture and paint the layer with the pink you got from my addon (paint the entire layer) once you did this for all the textures you will now give it instead of the usual 100% opacity/transparency you will give it something between 85% and 95%, too much will give less power/color to the normal map too less will make it shine too much and make it ugly, again you will have to try and error but I say go for 95% on your first try.

Once you did this for all the textures you have to save them *_smdi.paa (again put this files where you declared on your config). Now open the model INSIDE O2 (not GateBuilder) and normalize (F5) all the lods.

Hopefully if you understood my tutorial (I'm Portuguese and English is my third Language) than it should be working, go try it in game

PS1: At the beginning this may seem complex but in reality it's extremely easy the problem is that a small mistake in the config file or while naming the normal mapped textures won't allow it to work and it will be very hard to spot the problem.

PS2: The values declared inside the config like the power are values that indicate the power/type/light and amount of normal maps, personally I didn't use them much but I may give you further assistance on this if you need me to.

For now just go try it and tell me if it worked, tell me also if you got this pm, since it's a large one I have a safe copy just in case.

Have fun and good luck, btw, next to normal maps I think you should make shadows which is even easier, I can teach you that also if you need me to.