You will need Nvidia dds plugin . . it comes with .dds file opener to edit in PS and has Normal Map filter which can generate normal maps,for specular map is just to create a copy of your colored texture and then desaturate the color to zero its just black and white , making it brighter is more shine effect and making it darker is less shine effect as specular. .

basically you can create normalmaps in photoshop at your own custom design . . just google and download that plugin on nvidia website..

thers 2 version.. 64 bit installer is for 64 bit photoshop and 32 bit installer for 32 bit photoshop ..

the last thing is find tutorials on youtube on how to create them . .

oh wow the deep once .. for 2 years now this you have been doing . . are we getting close to Six ,, dont tell me this is 8k this will kill my GPU . .

from what i have encountered . . if you start adding cars in a working single DLC car that's the start of it . . I dont know if this is a scripthook issue and Im not really sure.

that is true but it will cost more mem consumption if it has too many. You just need to base your mipmap settings to what rockstar has for the sake of stability .. vanilla usually is having 8 mipmaps for high textures and 7 low textures /sometimes 6 .. for normal maps it is even only 1 mipmap up to 4 is ok..
mipmaps can smoothen graphics in game otherwise the textures will get jagged sharp that is why you need to balance. ..

GTA V is a big WORLD game and so many resources is being use while the engine runs and it is not advisable to use ARGB textures at all. . perhaps 1 per .ytd is fine ..

@Yankshuru

you can still spawn it in-game if you do so but tuning parts will not work , as of my observation is that tuning parts works in an individual car add-on DLC only.

I don't know how to explain this but it is the way vanilla cars' carvariations.ymt did it , in a merged carvariations.meta if you use the car id it will result bad and no lights for your cars.

you also need to raise vehicle_spawn in gameconfig to 10,000. Having so many add on cars is really heavy for the game memory , . So imagine a vanilla car has only 1-2 mb size and an add-on can have 5-15 mb size if the games memory eats that big it will cost a lot plus not mentioning the High quality textures, this is why there could be crash . . if you insist to use more than 10 cars then you will need good graphic cards and to compress ARBG to DXT5/DXT1 textures and lower each mipmaps count. .

@Sun2k if you really want it shiny .. lets make it simple .. i have done this many times ...

edit the specular map file , for example file named tl_v_michael_floor_terracotta_s <-- something like that it usually has _s at the end-letter which is grey-scaled texture ..

press ctrl + M in photoshop and the curves tool pops out, , play the curves make it brighter enable to get more shines ingame , the max shine is to make it all white , the zero shine is to make it all black, its up to you ..

for peds. the texture you will edit is the normal map file of the ped and is usually embedded in a .ydd file.. make it also brighter a little to gain the very shine effect. .

you can use texturetool kit to enable to gain access with embedded textures. .

now save it as .png ,replace the original texture and you're done .. see the result in game ..

additional tips for those who plans to do it . .

1. if you want to merge add-on cars that has modkits parts you better stop because it will fail and you cannot use the car with modkits in game.

conclusion: do not merge add-on vehicles with modkits , merge only vehicles that has no modkit parts.

2. when merging all carvariationsdata in 1 carvarations.meta, instead of using kit ID value, use this <lightSettings value="1" /> to all the cars inside that .meta to enable lights to work in every car in your new DLC.

note: I know people also is struggling with the head lights not working and this is the fix.

3. if you still experiencing a game memory error . you may try this ..
   edit gameconfig.xml and save it via openIV only . don't extract the file(it will break if done) and import like the way it was.

search for the lines and add the input value that you can calculate like hundreds or a thousand
<MaxVehicleModelInfos value="

<MaxExtraVehicleModelInfos value="

This be able to make the game read the added vehicle informations/contents and not get compromised to avoid crashes like game memory error. . if it is done i guess its safer now to use separate dlc cars with modkits individually.

I am even so disappointed that it has to be like this . .

thanks for reading.

@TUTTO97 most of the add-on cars are in High qualtiy textures and high polygons which will eat too much graphics memory and that cause crashes . . if you want to avoid that :

-you may want to combine your all addon cars into one DLC ,
-get a good gameconfig.xml that let allow more cars ingame
-Lastly compress the 32 bit(A8R8G8B8) to DXT5 8 bit and DXT1 4bit textures . . do it correctly cause masked texture will be messed up if not done correct .

there will/might be no fix for it if you have weak GPU for a too many add-on car package.

I will just give you tips , it's a bit easy but we know that codewalker takes time to master of using it . .now you take note first that these object entities are placed in the World by a placement file called .ymap so they can be removed or transfer or be multiplied by editing their ymap files ..

by pressing letter T in codewalker there appear the toolbar ( now you can play and experiment how to use these tools therein).

now you can start editing( you can remove these objects by deleting their entries in its ymap file ) ., after all finishing edits save the ymap file you edited then you can put them in the custom_maps dlc mod. If it's not totally working , then makeup a backup of the original .ymap file then replace it with the one you edited.

for example :
hw1_01_long_0.ymap -- you can locate this file through search everywhere in search bar or by pressing the selection info window button(toolbar) then go to ymap at the very bottom and then click rpfFileEntry there you can see

Resource file: x64j.rpf\levels\gta5_citye\hollywood_01\hollywood_metadata.rpf\hw1_01_long_0.ymap

now you know where it is located then its time to replace. .

@katysz the answer is there.. yes scaling a block is a good idea. . but you need to avoid using .yft model and check if a .ydr file if it has only 1 geometry meshed. ( extract to open formats look for a .mesh file open it with notepad++ . .)

get another block if it is not scalable.

this is what i have in mind. . a tool that can make interior mappers to be more productive , i noticed that world coords is different front from MLO interior coords so i think an essential tool like this will be a helpful to place any objects at a very instant ease .. trial error placing is a hard time ,,

but if theres any trick that can help please tell me .. thanks!