_extradist in q3map2 is the greatest "secret"/underdocumented feature in q3map2.

_extradist avoids this problem:

Link to Open Arena docs on _extradist: openarena.fandom.c...erburned_pixels

@Baker : Which version of q3map2 has this support? And which engine are the normal maps images you included from?

Hey tig ...
>Which version of q3map2 has this support?
Short answer: Basically all of them dating back 15 years.
Any that can do -deluxe in the -light command line. Requires engine support, can the modern Q3 forks use the -deluxe data -- I can't say because I don't know too much about those engine capabilities. I am working with essentially DarkPlaces (my Zircon engine fork, which has extra features).

Here is what I do ...
We have a brick texture here ... www.texturecan.com/details/250/ and download the .zip.
I take the bricks_0019_color.jpg and rename to bricks_0019.jpg
I take the bricks_0019_NormalOpenGL.jpg and rename to bricks_0019_norm.jpg
I take the bricks_0019_ambientocculsion.jpg and rename to bricks_0019_gloss.jpg
I do NOT need to create a shader at all. No shader needed = nice!
In my engine or DarkPlaces, all I must have enabled is r_glsl_deluxemapping 1 -- which is the default value in DarkPlaces -- and the rendering will look like the above.
===

I can mess with the textures in the map in real-time a command called r_replacemaptexture to test textures in real-time, I found recompiiling maps too slow to quickly test 20 textures.

My initial testing map when I started going in hard with this earlier in the year:

Edited 14.57 minutes after the original posting.

I'm going to do a super simple tutorial .map with a download/map source. It is super damn easy -- vanilla Quake + no .shaders.

Except for the dirty floor "_decal" that uses q3map2 decal projection, needs a couple of lines of shader code because decal.
Edited 1.28 minutes after the original posting.

Tutorial .map and textures (very simple map) ... see readme for map compiler arguments:

Download the Q1SP (there is a Shambler) + .map source: www.moddb.com/mods...source-tutorial

To play map, put .pk3 in c:\quake\id1 folder and type "map ambientcg"
This is a Quake 1 map and for best results use either Zircon engine (site: www.moddb.com/mods/zircon-engine ) or DarkPlaces

You just take the download .zip, unzip to textures/texturecan folder and rename bricks_0019_color.jpg -> bricks_0019.jpg, bricks_0019_NormalOpenGL.jpg -> bricks_0019_norm.jpg, bricks_0019_ambient.jpg -> bricks_0019_gloss.jpg
Edited 4.58 hours after the original posting.