Bump mapping Thread

Does any one know what it is, how you do it, and what, if any, specific programs do you need?

I've had a tiny bit of experiance with it. A bump map is applied to a skin or whatever, and then the light is rendered over it as if they were polygons. Something like that, and its not in many game engines as far as I know. But Doom 3 has it.

ok
black makes the light render so it looks like it sticks in
white makes it look like it sticks out
its nothing hard.

And what about the rest of the question? Is there a specific program needed? I know Halo2 uses bubp maping. I heard it makes for less polys and better looking models.

Like bad-company said, it's another texture that lays over the texture. It's grayscale and isn't drawn but affects how the texture is lit. Lighter colours on the bumpmap look like they're sticking out (they cast shadows on the texture) and darker colours look like they're sticking in (they get shadows cast on them). Only some engines support it. Doom 3 basically relies on it, as you'll see if you check out the models without bumpmapping Without it, they look simple and ugly, with it, they look Incredible.

So I can do that with any program or do I need a specific one? I said the same thing a second ago, and no one seemed to understand. I have never done skinning so I don't know

Any modelling program with some class (eg any one you ever heard of except Milkshape) can render with bumpmaps. As for actually skinning for *games*, it depends on the engine, like I said a second ago
DarkPlaces Quake, Doom 3 and Halo support bumpmapping. Probably Deus Ex 2 and HL2 too. That's all I can think of.

Dont forget farcry

alright, you can do it with any 3d program that has a texture application extension.

except for my old favorite Milkshape

- Edited By bad-company On Mon 26th, Jan 2004 @ 8:16:37am

I have a question myself about it... I've read that bumpmapping actually takes a few passes through the engine to show up, so which would be better for performance if you were modeling hair or fur on a game model: bump mapping, adding more polys, or using alpha masks?

alpha masks ...i guess

I reckon HL2 may / may not cover hair with an in-house hair sculpting tool. It's the only convincing way to do it.

Atlantis 3 had superb graphics for its time - it's still one of the best game graphics lots out there