Bump/Specular map for Source problem Thread

Heya I'm Christian Roupé from the American Gangster mod for Source.
We have run into a problem with textures, been reading all over the
internet but cant find a answer...

So if we look at e.g. our brickwall texture, we got one main texture
and one _normal texture.

VMT Codes:
"LightmappedGeneric"
{
"$basetexture" "brick_wall"
"$surfaceprop" "brick"
"$bumpmap" "brick_wall_normal"
}

For some reason it will not work..

Are you sure that the "$basetexture" and "$bumpmap" paths are the correct paths to the src texture?
If you just write brick_wall - it means the root folder. So if the src texture files is located in say textures/stone/ then the path must be textures/stone/brick_wall

Edited by: Nightshade

The files are located in the main materials map:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\sourcemods\MYMOD\materials"
so in this case I shouldnt have to enter any location but will give it a try with
a "materials/brick_wall"

Edited by: Zablar

Yea do that.
It's weird if it doesn't work.

hmm, no it should be the way I typed it, when entering the root material map "materials" the material doesnt even show.. The texture it self works its only the bumpmap not working

Edited by: Zablar

Maybe there is a problem with the src file then.
What file extension does it have? Is the size a power of 2? And what does it look like? What I mean is, is the normal map ("bump map" in source) actually purple? Because you can't use a greyscale heightmap as a normal map (bumpmap) in source afaik.

It could also be that you forget some step when using the conversion software (Vtex, VTFEdit or whatever tool you use for source textures nowadays). If the normal/"bump" map has an alpha channel that could also cause problems.

EDIT: Found this:
Developer.valvesoftware.com

Edited by: Nightshade

both bump and texture saved as vtf.

While creating the bump I used the Nvidia normal filter, saved it with photoshop .vtf plugin with the "Normal Map Template", usually I use the VTFedit but no difference. So yes its blue/cyan/pink

Okay, and the size of the texture is a power of 2?
I don't know what else could be the problem

hmm power of 2? bump and the texture is the same size

Power of 2 means a number of the form 2ⁿ where n is an integer
The sides on the textures can't be anything but 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096... and so on
512 x 512 pixels is good
so is 128 x 256
768 x 768 is not good

So if you have a texture that deviates - even slightly - then Source will not use it (just like most - if not all - other engines I am aware of)

Edited by: Nightshade

ah yes both 1024 1024.. Realy wierd..

Have you checked it in the actual game? The model viewer doesn't work the best for previewing normal maps.

Yes I checked ingame, this texture is assigned to a wall made in hammer-editor.

Okey solved, got some help from the steam forum, the mat_bumpmap on the map was set to 0 so wasnt rendering it, any way thanks for helping me out.