Creating normal maps for liveries in photoshop CS 777-200F

I am creating a new livery for the CS 777-200F. The problem is the maps are causing unwanted details such as rivets, body lines, and door handles on the aircraft and I can’t figure out how to get rid of them. I have tried making the maps one solid color but it always reverts to the default in-game. I would like to remove them completely and apply my own map. Please advise how I can apply custom bump and specular maps (CS777_FUS_01_M.PNG.DDS) to the Captain Sim 777-200F.




What you are seeing is the result of a normal map. These tell the rendering engine how a flat surface reacts to light to give the impression of 3D geometry.

Edit: What tools are you using to create the livery? As in, are you using the SDK to build it or are you only using external tools?

I have been using photoshop with the intel DDS plugin to edit images. The file structure has been created with sdk. I have what I believe is the bump map with the unwanted details on it (CS777_FUS_01_N.PNG.DDS) but any edits to this file don’t show up in-game.

I am using Intel texture works plugin for photoshop. Could changing these settings be the solution?
settings

Aiight, this is going to need a bit of a break down.

Your normal map looks kinda odd, where did you pull that from? Is that just opening the file provided with the aircraft in Photoshop?

Yes, changing the settings will dramatically affect the outcome but first you need to sort out what you put in to it because exporting to DXT / DDS from a greyscale image to be used as a normal might not work right.

A typical normal map has a base colour of R:0.5, G:0.5, B:1.0

From this base colour the red and green channels get mixed based on elevation from the mid point. When exported, the green channel gets moved to the alpha channel, well, for DXT5nm anyway. There are a couple of ways to make a normal map from scratch but that’s probably not the best way to approach modifying an existing one.

Do you have any options when importing the existing normal file? I kinda feel like the first step before modifying it should be getting it looking like a normal normal map.

Edit: Some of my questions might seem odd at times, I have extensive experience with texturing using GIMP. So, I’m not in the best position to be commenting on how to use Photoshop.

That grey map is the file from location “captainsim-aircraft-m774\SimObjects\Airplanes\CS_B777F_GE110B1\TEXTURE\BUMP” opened in photoshop. I would be happy with a blank map with no details at this point. I will try editing it in GIMP.

As an example, this is what I would expect a normal map to look like prior to exporting to a DXT / DDS file…

To get this I actually open the model in Blender using the Fly By Wire importer.

I am trying to avoid using blender or any complicated method. Opening CS777_FUS_01_N.PNG.DDS in GIMP gives me a black and yellow image. Ideally, for now, I would like to create a simple solid color map and have no details from the normal map present in-game. Opening dds files in photoshop, editing and saving has worked for the livery and specular map, but the normal map hasn’t proven to be so easy.

Yeah, that’s different to what I get when opening default normal maps in GIMP. It looks similar but mine almost look like a typical normal map but over saturated. I’m not entirely sure what format MSFS uses because I’ve never created a livery that I felt needed the normal map replaced.

In any case, to get a flat normal map this is what I would do. Create a basic texture with the RGB levels I previously mentioned or colour pick from my previous example, which is probably slightly off due to exporting as a jpg but would probably still be ok.

Then use MSFS to compile your project via the SDK with that flat texture in place as the normal map.

Something that is also important is having an appropriate json file alongside your texture but I imagine you are aware of this as you have a functioning albedo. Using the SDK to export the project will likely create them anyway.

Edit: Good luck. I’ll probably have a play about using the SDK livery creator tool. This is the only thing I had imagined I might need it for previously.

Ok, I suddenly remembered something and did some experimenting. Despite repeated searches trying to find the file formats for MSFS normal maps, I remembered you can read the header of the file in a hex editor. Doing so revealed default normal maps are BC5 format.

Further to this, I played around with trying to export my own. I found the results rather strange that I probably need to go and read more about this format to understand but the upshot is, if you want to create a flat normal map, simply make a black texture, export it to BC5 format, make sure it is named appropriately inside your livery and don’t forget to rebuild the layout.json.

Edit: At least this is what I had to do with GIMPs DDS plugin.

Another edit: I’m starting to think the GIMP DDS plugin might be broken with this format.

I was able to create a blank normal map by replacing the CS777_FUS_01_N.PNG.DDS file in the BUMP folder with a black dds BC1 created in photoshop (also works with BC5). Thanks for the tips NottheTagiwant.

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I am trying to save a NORMAL texture for the MSFS PMDG 737 using Photoshop but it will not show correctly in the sim. What format/settings should be used to save after editing?

Yeah, that’s the kind of result I get when exporting from a typical normal map where the base colour is R:0.5 G:0.5 B:1.0. The game seems to want a texture that uses a base level of 0, 0, 0, which to me doesn’t make sense. The final format based on analysing the stock files is BC5 but it your format was unacceptable to the game, you would see the purple / pink checkerboard texture. If you look up the spec for BC5, it’s a two channel texture, just Red and Green.

I do suspect that if you used the in game SDK to compile a livery project, it will convert standard normal maps in to the correct format but I have not tested it as I have not made a livery where I change the normal map. All my own livery creations just change the diffuse / albedo and comp.

Something you could try which is a bit of a bodge is selecting the base normal colour (a flat area of the texture and painting it black. This will resolve some issues but might also look weird elsewhere.

Edit: Looking into it again, it’s BC5 SNORM. So the values range from -1 to 1. This is likely why certain tools fail to open the file correctly as they possibly lose the negative values. This is why, black is flat in this scenario.

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