The phong mask is an alpha channel. It can be either tucked away in your base texture or it can be located in your normal map. Either way it has to be an alpha channel.

This channel only allows for greyscale colors, and as you can imagine, parts that are dark will be dull and parts that are white will appear shiny/bright. Typically with the source engine you specify where the phong mask is in the .vmt file (such as using $basemapalphaphongmask 1); however with the new importer you can just checkmark the box that says Base Map Alpha Phong Mask (first checkbox).[dl.dropboxusercontent.com]

So say I already have an alpha channel on my color map to have my item paintable, Should I then place my phong map in the alpha on my normal map and then check the base alpha phong mask?

Um... good question. Traditionally I would just use "$normalmapalphaphongmask 1" in the vmt... but I'm not sure how to do it with the new importer. I know for sure it's possible. Give me a sec to find out.

Yeah, if you already have an alpha channel for your color , you need to create another alpha channel in the normal map. The normal map can be empty, just filled with #8080FF color, but it only accepts normal maps up to 256x256 pixels, so make channel and then just change the image size.

Once you have the alpha in your normal map, in the VMT editor in the importer, load it into "Shared Normal" and uncheck the "Base Map Alpha Phong..." option. Now it should be bright only the part you defined in the alpha channel, and you only have to adjust the phong exponent and boost options to make it look as you like.

Oh wow that's confusing.... And I see an issue... I already have a normal map that is 512x512... So what do you propose I do about the alpha channel?

It let you upload a normal map that was 512x512? I didn't realize that was an option.

Well It did... I can shink it down some more but I don't want to risk losing the quality.

Well guys I think I figured out my issues and thanks for the help. The phong map helped... I think... But what I wound up doing was tweeking the normals a bit so that they were subtler so the lighting wasn't so harsh.

Glad it worked out.