In Photoshop CS4 there is a wonderful tool called "Actions". An Action is basically a recording of things you do in Photoshop that you can create and save. You can then use this Action on as many files as you want with a single click. This obviously saves us a lot of work because we only have to do it once and can then apply it on any image we like.
I recorded a very simple Action that does the steps explained in Gadaffy2's tutorial (except some unnecessary steps) and changes any picture into a normalmap useable by sc2.
Now Im gonna explain to those of you who never used actions before (which is the group of people this tutorial is written for) how to use actions in Photoshop CS4. (you should also try using it in older photoshop CS versions, I dont think the interface has changed a lot)
Here we see a simple sample image.
You need to make sure that your image is an rgb image. To do this go to ImageModeRGB Color
Now press ALT + F9 to open the "Actions" window (if it isnt already open) or open the "windows" menu and make sure its shown
tick that option
The Actions window looks like this
I could be hidden as a tab in some other window (like the "History" window is a tab in the "Actions" window in this pic) so you may have to search a little.
Now click the little button I marked with red
and select "Load Actions"
Navigate to the folder you saved the SC2.atn file in and load it.
You'll now have a folder in your Actions window called SC2.
In it is an Action called NormalMapOrange (creative name right?)
Hello, In this tutorial Im gonna give the people using Photoshop CS4 a simple way to convert standard (purple) normalmaps into the kind used by Starcraft2 (orange). This is based on this excellent tutorial by Gadaffy2 http://forums.sc2mapster.com/development/tutorials/6030-tutorial-normal-map-conversion-from-purple-to-orange/
In Photoshop CS4 there is a wonderful tool called "Actions". An Action is basically a recording of things you do in Photoshop that you can create and save. You can then use this Action on as many files as you want with a single click. This obviously saves us a lot of work because we only have to do it once and can then apply it on any image we like. I recorded a very simple Action that does the steps explained in Gadaffy2's tutorial (except some unnecessary steps) and changes any picture into a normalmap useable by sc2.
You can download that action here Link Removed: http://www.mediafire.com/?39ael2xl9pcp3ys
Now Im gonna explain to those of you who never used actions before (which is the group of people this tutorial is written for) how to use actions in Photoshop CS4. (you should also try using it in older photoshop CS versions, I dont think the interface has changed a lot)
Here we see a simple sample image.
You need to make sure that your image is an rgb image. To do this go to Image
ModeRGB ColorNow press ALT + F9 to open the "Actions" window (if it isnt already open) or open the "windows" menu and make sure its shown
tick that option
The Actions window looks like this
I could be hidden as a tab in some other window (like the "History" window is a tab in the "Actions" window in this pic) so you may have to search a little.
Now click the little button I marked with red
and select "Load Actions"
Navigate to the folder you saved the SC2.atn file in and load it.
You'll now have a folder in your Actions window called SC2. In it is an Action called NormalMapOrange (creative name right?)
Select it and hit the play button.
Your image should now look like this...
with the channels set up like this.
Now save your normal map as a .dds file, the compression settings are dxt5 and interpolated alpha. (.dds plugin here http://developer.nvidia.com/object/photoshop_dds_plugins.html)
That's it. Now just run the Action for every normalmap you might want to convert and dont forget to save them.