ok guys, here's one i haven't yet found an answer for.

How do you create normal maps for textures?

I have photoshop 7 i've downloaded the normal map plugin, but i just can't figure it out, does the file extension make a difference, does it have to be.dds and if so what does height must be power of 2 mean and how do i fix it?


Cheers guys

Spillage_idiot,

Normal maps have to be uncompressed, so I use .tga.

Power of 2 = 256*256, 512*512, 1024*128 etc for the dimensions of the pic.

You have to pick the normal texture in asset manager and include the material file in your fastfile.

does any body know if it's possible to extract the game textures to edit at all? and if so how i would do it?

Yes, go into Call of duty 4\main and open the iwd's using winrar or pakscape. You'll find them in the images folders of the iwd's, use iwitodds to convert them to dds images that you can open with Paint.net or something.

Iwi2dds: http://www.modcod4.com/download.php?view.2

Yeah, the normal maps in CoD4 are just IWD files but they're in a different format to how normal maps are usually set.

Not sure if you'll need to know all the following, but it might help

In PhotoShop (The Devil's graphics program) you can directly see the different colour channels - RGB and Alpha. A typical normal map's channels are like this
Red - texture "lit" left-right
Green - texture lit up-down
Blue - texture lit front-back - ie out the front of the screen
Alpha - usually for specular intensity

In CoD4 it's different

What would be the green part appears in the RGB channels - so basically it's the entire picture itself
What would be the red channel is in the alpha channel of the image
Blue doesnt exist - the game either calculates it from red and green, or just maps a blank white image for it. Doesn't make too much difference
And specular is a seperate image completely


So, to make a standard normal map from CoD4, you make a new image.
Copy the CoD4 image layer (would probably be called raster 1 or background, the main image anyway) and paste that into the green channel of the image.
Copy the alpha layer from the CoD4 image and put it in the red layer
And paint the th blue layer white

Assuming CoD4's bump maps are lit in the right direction (had problems with converting them before) you should end up with a clean normal map. If it's lit in the wrong direction the "outy" parts will appear as "inny" parts


You can just paint on CoD'4s normal maps directly, I just find it easier to put them into a saner format

Hope all that makes sense

ok this is gonna be really dumb i know, but i downloaded the iwitodds and when i open it it just flashes up and dissapears am i doing something wrong???

Drag the iwi file onto iwi2dds

oh really? but there are seperate spec maps too

nah I meant for othergames - they usually dump spec intensity in alpha, where CoD4 treats normal maps and specular maps differently.

Spec maps for CoD4 are the ones with filenames starting with ~ - i think spec is the main layer, and glossiness is defined in the alpha

edited on Apr. 2, 2008 10:26 am by |DA|DarkDilbert

Dobby, Dilbert. You 2 are legends i started using the normal map plugin only to find my textures came out looking like a master systems graphics now i use it and make a small adjustment to the blue layer and hey presto, perfect texture maps, thank you.

Spillage_idiot