Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Bump maps are usually generated via 3D editors using a function that allows you
to bake 3D geometry onto a flat texture file. For example, Blender has such an op-
tion at the bottom part of the Render panel. But sometimes it is more handy to use
some raster editors such as Adobe Photoshop (for example, to create a bump tex-
ture from a photo). The simplest case is the regular grayscale height map. It can be
created even from scratch using basic drawing tools such as brushes or by convert-
ing a photo into a map by some proper color manipulations. A good flair, some tests
on 3D models, and proper adjusting of a raster image can help draw the map manu-
ally.
A common example is a texture with some text that would be carved onto a 3D
surface. But it is practically impossible to apply a similar approach on normal maps
because geometry is coded in a less-analogous form, mostly being a source of di-
gital information. Also, it is hard to reproduce it manually. The only exceptions are
some minor manipulations with images, such as using a clone stamp tool for cloning
some fragments and painting over some elements that are among other things that
give an opportunity to create normal mapping textures that are seamless. For more
complex operations, third-party tools must be used. For instance, NVIDIA Texture
Tools for Adobe Photoshop (
https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-texture-tools-adobe-
map into a normal map.
