Hello,

I'm trying to make a floor with a bump and specular map, but it doesn't look very good in my opinion.
But maybe that's also because I never made something with bump and specular before.

I watched a lot of tutorials on the internet and read about it but everybody is saying different ways to make those.

About bump maps:
First of all. Is it right that everything that's dark will look lower than everything that's lighter?
And how to make it:
Take the diffuse map > Desaturate > High Pass Filter > Play a bit with brightness/contrast. (Maybe this is the "beginner" way?..)

About Specular maps:
Everything that's white will shine more then the darker parts?
How to make it..sort of the same way then bump..but totally different?... I just don't know..

Images attached are which I used and what came out in game. Left is with diffuse,normal and specular. Right is only diffuse.

Another question but I think it's sort of the same because it also has to do with some sort of 3D effect...
If I recolor a chair seat for example with a pattern, but I want the shadows of the seat itself remained, what is the best way to accomplisch this?
Tried to copy the seat only to a new layer, desaturate it, play with contrast and then use blending mode: Soft overlay on that layer. But that way the whole pattern I used went grey instead of the dark blue with yellow pattern.

Any help on that too maybe?

There's a tutorial on how to make a normal map - http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title..._for_TS3_-_Main. It's a TS3 tutorial but it still applies to TS4. I did a quick normal map using your rock texture following that tutorial (well, not really following it because I know how it's done, lol- but it's the same steps!) - it looks a bit different than yours does.

You're right about the specular- white is shiny, black is no shine and different shades of grey will have different levels of shine (all controlled by the alpha). There is a tutorial about that. I read a billion of them yesterday and I think the one I read is at TSR.

I did find that tutorial about that Normal map filter, but I can't get that filter to work on CS3, there isn't a NVidia Tools when I go to filters.
I did download such filter with the .dds download, but it won't load in my photoshop for some reason..
I do have CS6 too, going to try if that one does have this filter..

About the specular. I need to see exactly what they're doing. Not just some text. That's why I made video tutorials myself, because there are more people who have to see to understand, just like me.
And I don't just understand everything I read. Even with images, they're not always explaining everything they do. I don't know if the one you found on tsr was very clear to understand, but I can't find one...
Do you have a link?

Ow and I didn't know that for specular I have to edit the alpha channel. Going to try that too..
Thanks for answering anyway.

Specular tutorial: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jmif1gnjb...ms%204.pdf?dl=0 - complete with pictures.

Edit: CS3! That's right, I remember now. I watched your wall sticker tutorial and couldn't make the alpha the way you do, which is quicker than they way I was doing it. It was frustrating me to no end because I couldn't do one of the steps the way you showed how to. I can't remember right now -exactly- what step it was but I Googled how to do it in CS2 and the process was a tiny bit different. Same end result, just a slightly different way to do it.

I just received a question about that from 2 people using CS6!
I thought it had something to do with the fact that their background color wasn't white when pressing Ctrl + Delete, but it's something different then?

Ow and thanks for the Link! Going to try that.

The background color doesn't seem to have anything to do with it. I'd have to watch your tutorial again to remember exactly what it was. The quickest way for me to make an alpha (a simple one) is select the background with the magic wand, select>invert and select>save selection with "new channel" selected. (That isn't how I was doing it. That's what I figured out after watching your tutorial.) If there are a lot of little cut out areas in the outline I sometimes have to fiddle with the alpha after that. But it's easy and maybe that will work with CS6 too?

Btw, you're welcome for the link!

The 2 people who had problems with the selection not turning white are solved now. They had the background color not set to white.
Going to add that to the tutorial tonight.. Curious what your problem was with creating the alpha channel.