Normal maps trouble

I'm having some serious issues with normal maps on models. On the screenshot there are 2 identical props, but prop on the right was compiled with force_meta flag, while left one wasn't. Left looks a bit better yet uses vertex lighting, which ain't any good. Right prop uses lightmaps and it went almost completely black. Normal maps on both seem largely "exaggerated" when dynamic light appears near any surface using them. Yet I tried to make those maps as pale and non-contrast as possible, so that I can even barely see any relief on the image. No luck in improving situation so far.



I don't have a clue what's wrong here. Any help please?
Here's a test map and prop with all resources:
http://ompldr.org/vOHc0Ng

Maybe try backing up your config.cfg file and removing it from your home/.xonotic/data (Linux) or My Games/xonotic/data (Windows) directory? I think I had the same issue when I started using the autobuilds, creating a new config file from scratch solved it.

Tried this now, no effect.
What is even more peculiar, the concrete texture with it's own normalmap on the other side of that prop works just fine.
Can you please take a look at those textures? Maybe there's something I overlooked, or it's a bug that appears only on my PC for some reason.

Ok here it is:

done and done

I also made a gloss map for it, another thing you might look into is smoothing groups for your model.

Your normalmap looks very wrong to me. It looks more like a bump map to me. if you want to have a "flat" normal map you'd go for a image filled with (R 127, G 127, B 255) (representing a normal pointing directly away from the surface). http://www.bencloward.com/tutorials_normal_maps1.shtml

The grey normalmap that you use encodes very uncommon normal directions (the rgb-channels most likely don't even encode "true" normals, as the length of the normal vectors don't equal 1, but that may not be a problem for the engine), and most likely the lighting gets up messed up due to that.
How do you create your normalmaps?

Strahlemann, many thanks for linking that article. I think I finally understand how normal maps work.
I got this normal map using .werkkzeug 3 TE "Normal" operator with map type "tangent 2d". Werkkzeug 3 is a procedural texture generation tool available at http://werkkzeug.com. I've been using it for creating textures for quite a time, yet I don't have much experience of making bump- or normalmaps. Other available types of normal maps are "2d", "3d" and "tangent 3d". After reading about normal maps there I'm not even sure what kind of maps this operator produces.

Here is the screenshot of the whole tool with "tangent 2d" normal map. And here is "tangent 3d" map. Simple 2d and 3d maps are similar to tangent 2d/3d, although they seem to be "turned" in other direction.

I'll attach my texture project file in case you'll want to look at that tool.
Basic controls are "1/2/3" keys when over operator page to add new operators and "S" when any operator is selected to view image at that stage.


TH3FTB0T, thanks for taking a look. It has also clarified to me how a normal map for DP should look. And I think that smoothing groups are unnecessary here, I'm trying to make those shield segments look more sharp and edgy. This will probably need more refinement of their texture.

Another link:
Gooder tut