Solved Normal maps, how do they work?

The title is pretty explainatory, i have many ideas for normal maps but i couldn't find out how to get them to work

 

I think there was a tutorial to do them... It uses the Game editor, but the system to do them in another program and export them is more or less the same (I think) I used this tutorial to do a tatty map using gridmap as base, and it worked, but deleted it because it was too simple and small (Just some buildings, terrain variatiopns and jumps) Here it is:

Hope it work (Of course it will do, you´re a "crack" xD (I don´t know if there´s traduction in english in this contxt, so I explain: It means you´re really good in something)
Cheers Mate

 

Uh m8 thats not a normal map. Unless he isnt talking about cars? Normal maps are part of the car creation process. Or im misreading that. Either way ill put in my 2 cents

if you are talking about normal maps, gimp with the normal map editor i heard is good. i have created normal maps from scratch with it. just make a gray scale image and it can convert it to the normal map.(i think thats how it works, been a while since i did that)

 

I intended normal maps for cars, i suppose i have to download gimp or Paint.net has same functions?

 

I havent tried paint.net for normal map creation. I know it cant open the normal maps. There may be a plugin for it though. Not sure. Gimp doesnt have it built in, you need to install this plugin(this is the one i used for gimp). Even then this plugin cant open normal maps. Im not entirely sure how to edit the normal maps for the game.
https://code.google.com/archive/p/gimp-normalmap/

i also searched for some threads that may help. Give them a read, i think they have some good information.
http://www.beamng.com/threads/how-to-edit-create-normal-maps.27397/
http://www.beamng.com/threads/how-do-i-create-a-custom-normal-map.26811/

 

Thank you

 

Sorry!! I thought you were talking about terrain maps.
Cheers

 

Thanks, the tutorial is pretty explanatory, i'll chack that, the problem is solved for me

 

Now I know this is really old. This bump might go down in the record books, but the information is of curiosity to me at the moment.
I need to know what compression format you guys use on your normal maps.
I understand DXT1 for opaques, DXT5 for translucency stuff, etc. For the diffuse/color maps this is fine.
What do I use compression-wise (in the save dialog) to keep the engine happy with normal maps? Let me know!

 

ATI2/3DC in this Nvidia tool UI program I guess?

"ATI's 3Dc compression algorithm is a modification of DXT5 designed to overcome S3TC's shortcomings with regard to normal maps. id Software worked around the normalmap compression issues in Doom 3 by moving the red component into the alpha channel before compression and moving it back during rendering in the pixel shader"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S3_Texture_Compression

 

I answer to myself, yes ATI2, those all are actually here too:
https://wiki.beamng.com/Exporting_Textures_-_DDS_Files

 

@#$%!
This NEVER showed up in my response notifications.

I put the blame on you, rubbish DSL line with shaky wireless connection...

Thanks @Nadeox1 I'll make sure I correct my abnormal normals for the next beta of my map.

 

I saved my normal maps as ati2/3dc and it seems to be working, although some still say 'failed to load normal map (name) for stage 0' for some odd reason, I will have to look into it.
It's working for this one though (see ceiling tiles, that's one of the ones I did).

doesn't look too bad now!
Thanks for the help.