Which texture maps to create?

[JustMathew 1]

Hello there! 

 

I'm looking for a clear list of which different "texture layers" (or maps) to make for my model and I would like some advise for where to look for tutorials etc.

 

As of now, I know of these types of maps:

• Diffuse                (General color)
• Opacity               (Opacity, greyscale)
• Bump map          (White is "pop-out")
• Normal map        (Something like bumpmap, but different?)
• Specular map     (Shinyness)
• Glow map           (Glow in the dark, used on chemlights?)
• Reflection map   (The how well if reflects other objects)

source for this list.

 

 

When texturing, is it correct that maps I assign to the model in blender, will be carried over to Arma through Object builder? 

- In that case, I should be able to use general blender-texturing tutorials as reference, right?

As of now, this video is the best explanation of realistic texturing in blender, I have found.

 

Any kind of pointing-towards-where-I-can-learn-more is much appreciated!

 

// JustMathew

[da12thMonkey 1943]

Diffuse/Albedo map, tangent space normal map, ambient occlusion (ambient shadow) map, specular map and gloss map are the ones that are generally used.
Opacity is handled by an alpha channel in the Diffuse, but you should isolate faces of the model that need an alpha texture (such as windows), on to a separate set of maps rather than including it with the main body of the model
 
https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA:_Texture_Naming_Rules - it's absolutely critical that textures use these naming suffixes for the type of map you're using, before they are converted to the game's .paa format

i.e. from the above you will want a _co, _nohq, _as, _smdi and maybe a _ca if you have glass or something. The other maps types listed tend to have more specialised applications.

 
Normal map (_nohq) from other software usually requires the Green channel to be inverted for use in Arma.

Arma 3's specular map _smdi is kind of a combination formed from placing Specular map in the Green channel and Gloss map in the Blue.

Usually the specular map requires a lot of tweaking to get the right greyscale values in G and B rather than direct output from other software e.g. Substance Painter or dDo.
 
All maps must have dimensions that are 2^n pixels (64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048) rather than random sizes. Can have 1:1, 1:2, 2:1 etc. aspect ratios so long as the dimensions are correct. (e.g. 64*64, 512*1024, 4096*2048 etc.)

[JustMathew 1]

Thanks man, that was exactly what I was looking for!

 

Do I have to convert the maps manually to .paa, or is that done when I pack the addon with Addon Builder? 

In the Naming rules you linked to, it says source textures are OK to have as .png.

[opteryx 1562]

Just use .tga, the engine will automatically convert them to .paa when you run Buldozer.

[JustMathew 1]

Are there any advantages of using .tga?

When I make textures in blender, it is made in .png.

[da12thMonkey 1943]

Tools will convert .png to .paa AFAIK, but .tga is the standard.

I'm unsure whether the automated process that Opteryx mentioned with buldozer and binarisation, works as smoothly with .png as it does with .tga since I only ever use .tga. But ImagetoPAA is certainly capable of manual conversion of .png to .paa, so you could always just batch convert them with that tool (don't use TexView to convert stuff - takes to long doing each one manually).

 

I figure it's .tga because with .tga you can choose whether to save as 24-bit (RGB+1-bit Alpha) or 32-bit (RGB+8-bit Alpha) along the same lines as the output _co.paa and _ca.paa

[JustMathew 1]

Ah okay, then I will use .tga!

 

Thanks for the good answers guys  :D