Texture problems with asset

[drakblod]

Hey!
I'm currently working on a building, and I decided to try to add a normal map to it. The result became this;

As you can see on the poles between the windows, it renders like 50% of the way down, then it goes into a blurry, none-3d version of the texture.

All graphic options are set to the maximum in C:S.

Here is the same building without the normal map, and it looks to me like it still goes a bit more blurry the further you go down the building.

Here it is again in-game and without a normal map, and as you can see it get's more and more blurry the further down it gets;

I'm not sure if this is something the game does automatically and has always done. but I haven't noticed it until know, and if there is a solution to it, I wanna know it.
Especially when I add the normal-map, as it gets alot less discrete.

So if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.
Thanks!

 

[Alex24]

That's mip-mapping. You cannot really avoid it, since it's something that is set by the engine. CSL isn't really doing a great job at it, but it's ok.

Personally I haven't seen a difference between no normal map and with normal map. So in your case the perspective is different from the first picture and the second one. And the angle can be really cruzial for mip-mapping. So a slight difference in angle is making a great difference in getting blurry.

 

[drakblod]

Okay thank you Alex24 for the answer. Well then there's nothing I can do about it.

I do know really little about normal maps, as I haven't read into it before this building. I believe someone meantioned that the red channel should be inverted for the shadows to come right or something.
I haven't done anyhing like this.. I used NVIDIAs PS-plugin directly on my diffuse texture and from the first pic, it looks like the shadows are on the correct place.
Does the plugin do this automatically or can I get an even better result with red inverted?

 

[mntoes]

I asked how to do this over at simtropolis, As for the effect I guess it depends on the individual building.
read the thread here:-

http://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/68756-an-important-reminder-about-normal-maps/

BTW if you get the Gimp you can obtain a plugin to create normal maps for you. (don't know how it compares to Nvidea,s, never used it)

 

[drakblod]

Yeh, that's the thread I remeber reading to. Then I guess it's somehow already right then, because the shadows looks like they're on the right place.

I think the NVidia-plugin does what it's suppose to do. I haven't tried anything else yet, so I don't have anything to compare to. But it makes normals depending on how white/black the surface is.