?Normal Maps Sub Skins?

[skwasjer]

Originally Posted by l3th4l

to add the conning towers you gotta look inside UPCData\UPCUnitsData and then the unitparts file you're interested in. look for the conning tower normal map overrides (idk where the parameter is first defined maybe skwasjer can point you in the right direction?). you also need to create those normal maps based on the textures found in textures/tnormal/tex of course.

what is that used for if we already have a normal map? And is the name "LightmapTexture" which those Oxx textures are called inside the upc files a leftover from sh3? I haven't seen a illuminated surface (or are they simply used for making shadows?) and I thought the Oxx textures were used for specularity?

A normal map is not the same as a height map. I can go ahead and explain everything but there's a many good resources out there. Below some from wikipedia.

Bump mapping in general: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bump_mapping
Height map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heightmap
Normal map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_mapping

An interesting summary page with screenshots: http://www.modwiki.net/wiki/Texturing

The height map is stored in the alpha channel of the Oxx.
The normal map is stored in RGB of the Nxx.
The ambient occlusion/shadow map is stored in RGB of Oxx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambient_occlusion)

The 'LightmapTexture' is the ambient occlusion/shadow map. In a 3D editor you speak of ambient occlusion, but the baked texture that is used in the game is a 'lightmap'. SH3 only uses ambient occlusion for interiors iirc, not for exterior/ships/etc... It does NOT use bump/normal mapping...