Right, so here's the problem:


As it stands, I've got GIMP 2.0 fired up... and I'm looking at what appears to be a rather satisfactory normal map of a child's vault suit. It looks like everything here on this end should be fine. In fact, it actually looks pretty damn close to the original... sans the 101 on the back. I've done this for a few of my new textures now, and I was just going to test this one out before getting to work on the rest of the batch.

But here's the kicker -

I've followed the only decent tutorial I could find... and got a result that looks right.


But the second I put it in game, the whole thing becomes a flattish... glossy mess. I've got no idea what the hell I did wrong. I thought I had the alpha-channel thing done right. I thought I chose all the right settings for the normal map filter. I thought I used the right compression.

But I'll be damned if I can get anything other than the same nearly-solid blue wall to show up in the GECK.


If someone can tell me where I missed a step, or point me to a tutorial that's more current (and hopefully doesn't omit whatever stage I've missed...) I would be appreciative.

Could you post a picture ? because it is difficult to imagine what is wrong just by your description.
Here is what your normal map should look :
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/196/normalmapx.jpg/
and this is what the alpha channel looks for the file above :
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/20/nalpha.jpg/

Just check what you got different (the model is for advlts but it should look somehing similar for children vaultsuit)

By the way, I use Nvidia NormalMapFilter and usually work on a copy of the green channel. Can you post the link to the tutorial, it would make it easier to see where it does thing differently ?