Paint query: _norm.png.dds

[SpaceWeevil]

Attachment 88045

This is a question for all the brilliant repainters in our group - I realise I may be out of luck as far as a simple explanation goes, but anyway....

The image on the left is a _NORM.PNG.DDS from one of the Aeroplane Heaven Chipmunk liveries. The image on the right is a _NORM.PNG from their plain white texture 'repaint kit'. The _NORM.PNG looks like an old-fashioned bump map and seems to produce a different apperarance & reflection in the Sim compared with the _NORM.PNG.DDS textures; it's very obvious if, say, I swap out just one wing. Saving the PNG as a PNG.DDS makes no difference.

Is there a trick to saving these _NORM.PNG textures so they look and behave like the _NORM.PNG.DDS on the left? I'm still using paint.net, which opens the image on the left looking more like the one on the right. I may be hopelessly confused in trying to work 'old school' but I'd be grateful for any pointers.

[Mathias]

That's basically what the SDK generates if you feed it with an aircraft project and let the Sim do the conversion.
Don't know if there's any option for repainters to do something similar.

[tankerguy72]

Not at my computer now, but i think if you make the Blue channel black it will make it like the one on the left. Just going from memory at the moment.

[Radioman123]

You may want to look at the following site.

NormalMap-Online (cpetry.github.io)

This can create normal maps from images. White looks suppressed into the surface and Black has height slightly above the surface. The blue you see is tied to glossiness. A lot of folks tune down the glossiness by making the background a shade of drab-green by suppressing the blue content. In military aircraft you want a little glossiness-reflections but not a lot. You have to play with it a lot to get the right effect.

[Fnerg]

I use Nvidia Texture Tools to create Normal maps. There is a preview window which updates the result as changes are made. It will also save in the right format which MSFS understands.

https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-...tools-exporter

[zetar]

gimp 2.10 and more !

[SpaceWeevil]

Thank you all, I shall plod on!

[SpaceWeevil]

Attachment 88061

If anyone's still interested it turns out that paint.net can save the normal.PNG files as DDS BC5 (Linear, Unsigned) which give the same effect in the Sim as normal maps generated by the SDK. They don't look quite so psychedelic but they do the job.