1.

Importing the material images for the Ground material

Press Import/Texture in the Data Explorer
Browse to your picture folder and select the texture: ground_diffuse.bmp
leave the other settings unchanged
press Import
thise image is used for:  Diffuse map (Effect map 0)

Press Import/Texture in the Data Explorer
Browse to your picture folder and select the texture: ground_normal.bmp
Select the Will be used as a normal map entry
press Import
thise image is used for: Normal map

The textures are now imported to the Resources/Textures folder and converted to a TGA file

2.

Creating the material

Press Create/Resource/Material in the Data Explorer or Material/Create in the Material Editor
Create a material named : Ground
Go to the Texturing Section
In the Effect Map 0 entry, select the ground_diffuse image from the list
When you press the Play button in the bottom of the material editor, you will see the material projected onto a spere, cylinder or box.
The texture is still flat

In the Normal map, select the ground_normal image from the list
You can see that nothing has changed yet.

3.

Setting up lightning

Select the Per Pixel Lightning in the Method section.
You will notice that the material now looks very much alive.

4.

You can now apply the material to an object and add that object to the scene.

5.

Experiment with different materials, provided in the source files (stone, brick, metal and honey)

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note that in order to see the material work in your scene, you need to add the DefaultDirectionalLightSet to your scene.

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there are 2 ways you can import the normal map in Shiva
- Will be used as a normal map
- Will be used as a high qulity normal map
In the image you can see the difference in the way the texture is stored, but also the materials look very much different. I would say the high quality texture is more subtle.