Normal Map Issues.

[Ancasta]

Today I decided to dust off my Maya, fire up Photoshop and start thinking about modding.

I'm only dipping my toe first, understanding modelling and texturing basics in Unity which is all pretty simple so far. Except, of course, something that should be simple not being simple at all.

I have recovered some textures to have a look at by using Hex Editor already and, although I can't find any documentation, it works fine. Until it comes to normal maps. Converting a normal map from .mbm to .pbm, using HxD, just gives me a bad return. It looks like the normal map x3 across and a lot of empty space bellow which would make me think that I am trying to convert it to the wrong size but I have tried 1024x1024, 512 x 512 and 256 x 256 so I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

Does anyone have any idea what seems to be the matter?

Failing that, could anyone show me a ready to photoshop normal map .pbm for the mk1 command pod as an example so I can compare?

Cheers.

[Cheebsta]

Hmm, Unity complains when you add normal maps and says they aren't marked as normals, upon which you just click to "mark" them, whatever that means. I wonder if something with that is causing the problem?

[Ancasta]

I am just at the point of testing my way around Kerbal so, just for future reference, I would like to get past this small issue.

Currently I use HxD just fine with everything except the normal maps. A basic example is this Mk1 Command Pod coming out like this:

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj307/Colesy/model001_zps9b3dcdaf.png

I don't think that I've used the wrong size in HxD against this sample, which is what I'd put errors like this down to.

[Cheebsta]

And here is my result on one of my own mbm normals of a known size:

And it should be:

[Ancasta]

Odd, I'm guessing there must be a way around it?

That marking you mentioned?

[Cheebsta]

That is just all I can think of that might be causing it. It does seems really strange that the game would be able to use that grey mess for anything. I was hoping someone else would come along by now and call us both noobs, lol.

[Ancasta]

Still no community member here with an answer? I could do with a hand.