Tip! -- Normal Maps (Patreon)

Last night I figured out that GIMP sometimes doesn't generate Normal maps correctly.  Or, at the very least, I should say it does not generate them correctly for VaM (which is what we care about, right?  haha).  I say "sometimes", because I've also seen them generate correctly without any correction needed (not sure why).  However, sometimes I need to invert one or more of the color curves after converting the texture to a Normal Map to get the proper in/out orientation.

It's possible you might have a different setting than me, but it's worth checking if you are making your own textures.  You want the red highlight in the right/lower-right, and the green highlight in the upper left.  If they aren't oriented that way, try generating one without inverting the Red color curve, then generate another with it inverted, then do the same for the Green color curve, and then test your various Normal maps on your model in VaM.  You should see a big difference on things like nipples, moles and skin imperfections when the Normal Map is correct.

Because of this revelation, I will be going back through all my old models and checking / regenerating their Normal Maps.  I will post updates to any content that needs fixing and upload the new and improved Normal Maps.

--WolfmanVR