Custom skin bug

[oboe]

I've been working nearly every day on a project updating an old P-38J skin of mine, and something has changed recently, maybe with the last patch?    The skin is having some weird new artifacts, and I haven't been able to figure out the cause, although it is similiar to problems I was having last Feb when I just started trying to figure out the new files used in AH3 skins.  Back then I wasn't making the _N map correctly (using the wrong bit depth) and it was producing a weird harlequin-like effect on the skin.   The new problem is similar to that, but I had not made any changes to the _N map.

To rule out anything I may have changed on my skin, I made a new custom skin folder, created a unique p38j.txt file for it and copied the the P38J1.bmp, P38J1_N.bmp, and  P38J1_S.bmp files to the folder.  (The default P-38J skin does not have _E.bmp or _P.bmp environment and power map files).  Anyway, the skins appear differently, when I think they should be identical:



You can also see the difference just viewing in the hangar.   I am using 'default' graphic detail options.

[oboe]

The P-38L shows the problem better:



If I delete the _N.bmp file from my skin folder, the problems go away.  But the _N.bmp is the default P-38L _N map, copied directly from the default skin's folder.

[hitech]

That looks like the normals on the left wing in the _N file are inverted?

HiTech

[oboe]

I don't think I know enough about Normal maps to say for sure - I thought they just governed perception of surface depth variations on the skins; I don't know why the whole left wing would appear to be in shadow, or what is going on with the patch on top of the boom-mounted radiators.

Here is the same problem occurring on the P-38L skin.  All I did was create a custom skin subfolder and copied the P-381.bmp, P381_N.bmp and P381_S.bmp from the default skin subfolder.  No changes of any kind were made to the files.  Yet the skin looks different under the same lighting conditions.