Normal-Mapping Sucks

I don't get it.

You don't need a .vmt for the normal map. And I'm not sure why it isn't
working, but here's the .vmt from one of my own materials that truly
does work:

<div style="margin-left: 40px;">"LightmappedGeneric"<br style="font-family: courier new;">
{<br style="font-family: courier new;">
"$basetexture" "persia/cartoon09"<br style="font-family: courier new;">
"$surfaceprop" "concrete"<br style="font-family: courier new;">
"%keywords" "persia"<br style="font-family: courier new;">
"$bumpmap" "persia/cartoon09_normal"<br style="font-family: courier new;">
}

</div>

Valve usually has "_normal" at the end of .vtf files instead of
"_bump". Maybe that's making a difference? I assumed you closed the
brackets on the crackdirt.vmt right? You may have compiled the .vtf
files incorrectly. I personally use/recommend
VTFTool.

Thanks for your help - somehow, deleting the .vmt for the normal-map texture got it to work. However, I have another question now: how do I make bump maps work for a blend texture?

Personally, I don't think it's possible (or might not be worth the
effort). Try looking at Valve's .vmt's for blend textures, though.
There's very little documentation for any of this, I'm afraid.

when you name a texture to end with _normal, vtex takes notice and does something different with it. i don't remember what, but there's an extra bit of dialogue in the command prompt window concerning it. it might do the same for textures ending with _bump, but i doubt it.

and i don't remember seeing any reference to bumpmaps in any of the vmt's for blended textures that i looked in. maybe there is one somewhere, but i wouldn't be too hopeful.

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i eat paint

fishy said:
when you name a texture to end with _normal, vtex takes notice and does something different with it. i don't remember what, but there's an extra bit of dialogue in the command prompt window concerning it. it might do the same for textures ending with _bump, but i doubt it.

when you end it with _normal, vtex automaticly puts "normal" "1" in the .txt ,thus compiling it as a normal texture (disabling nice filtering and whatnot). in the compile window it gives you a suggestion about putting a command in the .txt if you want to convert the texture to a normal texture, but i assume this is already done via the photoshop plugin etc. The same goes for files ending in _dudv etc. It even works if you end it in _normal000 say if you want to make an animating texture. however in my experience animation only works on base textures, not on the normal textures.

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These words are my diaries screaming out loud

I've noticed people here seem to be using the terms bump mapping and
normal mapping synonymously. They are actually different techniques, so
make sure you are using the ones you mean to use.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

ReNo said:
I've noticed people here seem to be using the terms bump mapping and normal mapping synonymously. They are actually different techniques, so make sure you are using the ones you mean to use.

you are right ofcourse, but the funny thing is that valve doesnt seem to make the distinction all too well. for textures with standard shader that you want to add a normal map to, you have to set

"$bumpmap" ".../..._normal"

for it to work (not "$normalmap"). This confusion can also be seen when you type mat_normalmaps 1 in console: only the bumpmaps show..well, what they call bumpmaps.

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These words are my diaries screaming out loud

Personally, I don't think it's possible (or might not be worth the
effort). Try looking at Valve's .vmt's for blend textures, though.
There's very little documentation for any of this, I'm afraid.

The blend_rocksand texture is bumpmapped, but you have to make it displacement and invert the alpha and create a cubemap somewhere that isn't directed at the sand.