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[Raxx]

Well Steve, the problem is that you're asking me to explain something that I think is beyond my level of...technical prowess I'm certain there are hundreds of normal map shaders and articles about utilizing normal maps on the web right now.

Some quick links I pulled off of google:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_mapping
http://www.3dkingdoms.com/tutorial.htm

http://gamedev.net might be able to shed some light on the subject

[Steve]

Raxx, if you could point me to where you got that image of the 3 different kinds of bumpmapping perhaps I could figure out how they made (b).

[Raxx]

Well, I got it from this forum article: http://www.game-artist.net/forums/support/7756-bump-maps-vs-normal-maps.html but aside from the first two posts and the last one, there's not a whole lot of "how" that other articles didn't cover, but it might help.

The blender manual also compares between normal maps and bump maps: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Bump_and_Normal_Maps

Really all I do is google "bump vs normal map". Like I mentioned though you'd probably get a better idea if you check out normal map cg/hlsl/glsl shader files...

[hihosilver]

Some more links I found:
http://www.highend3d.com/maya/tutorials/texturing/229.html
http://wiki.polycount.net/Normal_Map
http://www.pixologic.com/docs/index.php/Understanding_Normal_Maps

[texel]

Steve,
Maybe peoples want to be able to directly  load Normal Maps textures instead of greyscale texture to use their own normal maps (computed from Nvidia Melody or something else, and not from Anim8or) and not just the ones computed by Anim8or. Maybe Anim8or can already do that (i have not tested)
Example:
http://planetpixelemporium.com/tutorialpages/images/nlinsample.jjpg.jpg

Maybe peoples also want more depth in the bump map relief. This can be done by more advanced (and slower) technics than simple dot3 Bump Mapping such as paralax Bump Mapping or Relief Mapping (maybe you already use it).

[Steve]

I understand what you're saying, texel.  I agree that directly loading normal maps would be useful.  Anim8or generates 1: tangent-space normal maps internally from greyscale/hight maps today.  Normal maps can also be modeled in 2: object space and they can be 3: view dependent.

It appears that (b) in the image that Raxx posted *are* view dependent because the center of the bumps are moved up form their origianal position.  Anim8or could be made to support regular normal maps but it cannot support view depedent maps (because the result would be wrong if the viewpoint is moved from what was used to create the map).

[Suppastar]

Soooo........ are Normal maps finally down on the list? *Fingers cross*


There are so many programs out now for Normal maps, but Height maps are just in the dark, I haven't found 1 tutorial on how to make them properly. Having real Normal maps could generally improve the render speed's and Bump map(If allow the use of both at the same time of course) quality. Not only that, it will also improve Anim8or in terms of Game development.

[Monex]

I think I found what the last of Raxx's images is using: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displacement_mapping. 

[Water Music]

I'm kinda out of the loop on these things, but the last I heard displacement mapping support was being considered for DirectX 11.  I've been led to believe that that will make normal maps obsolete, but I have no idea whether or not it is even still on the table.  I linked to this article in an earlier post:  http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/opengl-directx,2019-7.html . 

[texel]

Displacement mapping is very different from Bump Mapping.

Bumpmapping is an illusion. it creates relief on a flat shape using a special way to compute illumination of each pixel of the shape. There are different technics to create Bump mapping: Emboss Bump Mapping, dot3Bump mapping, Parallax Bump Mapping, Relief Mapping, ... The last technics recquire shaders for real time rendering.

Displacement mapping move each vertex in the direction of its normal, in a distance which depend on the color of the texture on the vertex. It do not recquire Shader, DirectX 11 or OpenGL 3.1. It can be done with CPU. This feature was already available on 3DS Max 1.0 and maybe also before.
Hardware displacement mapping is a way to create displacement mapping in real time using shaders. It is also already available on DirectX 9 and OpenGL using shaders.
I think Hardware Displacement mapping would be less usefull than "CPU" Displacement Mapping.
Displacement mapping is not better than Bump Mapping because it recquire more vertices and faces ("to move"). It's just different.

[odp04y]

Would parallax (virtual displacment) mapping not work?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_mapping

[xalener]

I can do what xalener has fairly trivially

DOES THAT MEAN YOU'll DO IT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

[Suppastar]

Hey Steve, I found a site that has images of the what the code does and the source codes for OPENGL. It even has some DX 8.1 code that you might be able to use or scavenge from.

http://www.zanir.szm.sk/dx10-19.html

[bamman62]

Once again, glad to see this thing going twice as well without me.

*Puts on his normal map hat

I would love to see a bunch of these features included in the next release. Especially a few new texturing things that could make a significant impact on the quality of renders.

Parallax mapping looks amazing in my opinion.

[Modeler_in_the_Myst]

I am no programmer, so how implementable this is, is way beyond me.
But what if, as variation of the Insert tool in face editing, instead of  adding a smaller copy of the face inside, you insert a smaller polygon, with a menu for how many faces you want the inserted polygon to have.