What are the difference between Textures (nm, cl. da)

from Sins Forums
So Im at the point in texturing and as Im reading pdf's they talk about applying 3 different textures wich confuse me, first is Normal map (-nm) second is Color Map (-cl) and third is Data Map (-da) but I have no clue what each suppose to do and how I am suppose to make each one, I assume Normal Map is the skin or UV map, but what are the other 2 especialy the Data Map? And how are they suppose to look like (could you post an example of each, I would Greatly Apreciate it, and after this Im making a damm tutorial. so others wont ask same things...)
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Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Color map is the "skin" of your model, something like this:



(you can see some unfinished areas in the example, that's how that UV mesh looks like before you paint over it). Alpha channel controls specularity of the surface.

Data map is how you tell the game which areas of your texture should reflect environment and how much, which should glow and how much and which should be painted in the color of your team (and how strongly).

It looks like this:



You primarily handle RGB (Red Green Blue) variables to control each aspect; Red controls team coloring, blue controls reflectivity, and green luminosity. In the alpha channel you can also control the amount of bloom associated with your textures.

And finally, the normal map:



Though it looks a bit different when saved as a .dds file, the normal map controls bump mapping on the texture. You generate normal maps by using NVidia's Photoshop plugin... you also need Nvidia's plugin for saving .dds files in Photoshop.

Hope this helped a little!
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks this clears it all up, the only thing is that the normal map doesnt look like the one u posted here what it looks like in a preview before saving
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Well i actualy found out what was wrong with that, I used alpha Chanel instead of RGB to define depth, anyway I redid it and this what i got, but when ever i try to open it in XSI, the XSI crashes to hell... I have no idea why. If you could help or point me in what settings im suppose to convert with I would greatly appreciate it. thanks.