- The great ways include making a super high-poly version of the model you are texturing and sculpt the details in the model. Then you bake a normal map from that high poly model. This is hard, but it gives you the best possible result.
- The good way include the much easier way of generating a normal map from a texture, a 2D file, in an application like CrazyBump, MindTex2 or AwesomeBump. This is easier. But you have to do stuff with the texture, otherwise you'll end up with...
- The really bad way of making a normal map is by throwing a diffuse or albedo texture straight into CrazyBump, MindTex2 or AwesomeBump. This is bad, because the application will not actually understand the shape of the object the texture portrays.
https://imgur.com/M3dWxlI
The dirt on the texture will be regarded as something to make a shape out of. The same thing with the wood grain. The program simply don't understand how the object actually looks and how it is shaped. Don't do this, in 99% of all cases. It is a waste of time and a waste of server space to upload it.
If you instead alter your texture quite a bit by removing dirt and other detail that isn't actually shaping the object in any way, then, by using contrast to tell the application how the shape actually looks, create sort of a height map so to speak, you'll end up with something like this:
https://imgur.com/VQMbF7m
Note how it actually understands how the metal frame looks, that the hinges should be on top of the frame, and how the wood grain isn't giving that much detail in the normal map compared to the space between the wooden planks.
What I did was to remove a lot of contrast from the wood, but at the same time I added contrast in the space between the wood. Then I removed a lot of contrast (both brightness and color contrast) in the metal frame and the hinges, while also making them brighter than the wood so that the application understands that the metal parts are on top of the wood. Then I did the same idea with the bolts, while also adding a slight round shape to them. Finally, I removed all the layers of dirt on everything, because the dirt is not shaping the object, it's just flat, kinda like paint.
You would actually be doing the same thing with something that is painted actually. Imagine if there would have been a painting with the Hlaalu symbol on the wood. I would have removed that painting completely in the texture I generate the normal map from, otherwise, the painting would be something "shaped" in the normal map. Bad!
Oh! And a quick note for everyone: OpenMW uses the Direct X-style of normal mapping, despite being an OpenGL application. This is very important to make sure your normal map displays correctly. So make sure you generate the normal map in the correct way. Most normal map generators will generate the Direct X style by default, so most of the time you will not have to do anything. Baking a normal map in blender however will give you the OpenGL format by default, so you will have to do some stuff to convert that to Direct X-style.
While we're at it, how do I make a specular map then? Like this:
https://imgur.com/MpMin4n
All these textures together ended up like this:
https://imgur.com/deodvcP
There are probably way better ways of doing stuff, but this is how I do them at least. It does take time, and it's not a one-click solution. But it works. Good luck!