Considering bump maps...supported in BC?

[Kirk]

You can fake the effect by baking the bumps into the texture and by insuring that the "bumpped" areas are black in the specular file, that is about as close to normal/bumps you are going to get.

[Dalek]

You can fake the effect by baking the bumps into the texture and by insuring that the "bumpped" areas are black in the specular file, that is about as close to normal/bumps you are going to get.

:arms: What I said.

But no, BC's engine is to old for lighting to show up bumps. And it doesn't really make much sense for that to happen anyway. The ships would just look odd.

[Kirk]

:arms: What I said.

Not quite.

The ships would just look odd.

Do explain, I think normal maps look quite nice when done right.

[Shino Tenshi]

It looks odd if teh light ingame actually come from a different direction as one would presume by looking at teh beavels...
 :arms:

[JamesTiberiusKirk]

yeah... i know what you mean. the light comes from one corner, but the bumps on the textures make it look like its from another.

[Raven Night]

Well, the reason bumps would be great on Klingon ships is it makes the panels look much more realistic...easy weathering that way. The difference is quite dramatic, and can be controlled by either turning up or down the amount in the texture control box or cleaning up a specular map a bit to make the bumps cleaner.

I will post shots on the difference...here I am just using the speculars for bumps, obviously this makes it too dirty, so the map would have to be cleaned up a bit, but you get the idea.

Notice how HOK 1 is very smooth, HOK two much rougher with more pronounced paneling, especially on surfaces in direct contrast to a light source. This gives the ship a more realistic overall feel, and with the right bump maps can add proper weathering and scarring.

Speculars are good, but they really just add luminosity, or shine to panels when in direct light instead of depth.

[MarkyD]

Yeah, it does look neato, but BC dont support it .. and I think your textures would not benefit from baking those bumps on to be honest, as you have drawn so much depth and detail anyway. keep in mind for legacy ;)

Normal bumps also respond to lighting (Legacy) but not in BC as the engine is too old and thus isn't supporting bump/normal-maps.

So Legacy supports Normal Maps? is this correct?

[JamesTiberiusKirk]

legacy has bumps... yes

[MarkyD]

But not normal maps?

[Shino Tenshi]

Actually the same.

[MarkyD]

Actually the same.

Urm actually not.    Their is a massive difference between normal maps and bump maps....   

 :arms:

anyway, im assuming legacy does not support normals.

[Shino Tenshi]

It's labeled as "Bump" but it uses Normals after all.
http://wbs.nsf.tc/articles/article11_e.html

[Legacy]

Ok guys, technical explanation:

1st - there are no bump maps in bc, nor in any other engine. Bump maps are not supported by any real time application. BTW, bump maps are greyscaled maps that are used to add faked depth, where black is 0 depth and white 100% depth, and how stronger that "bump" will be depends on the rendering method and intensity.

2nd - Games use normal maps instead, which are are RGB textures which are used to determine the way the light will reflect on the surface based on the normal variations. Colors work as axis on the basic vector for the normal (R=X, G=y, B=z) and as normals are usually perpendicular to the surface (x=0,y=0,z=1) normal maps tend to be blueish

3rd - BC does not support normal maps at all, and no, there's no way to implement then, because the GFX are hardcoded on the engine.

4th - All those above are only rendering fakes, acting on how the light affects a surface, none of them adds real details, like CG rendering displacement, which again, is not supported by realtime applications.

5th - There are no "bump maps" or "bump filter" at all in photoshop. The filter the guys are speaking is called "bevel and emboss", and it's used to fake the lighting border effect in a surface. If you are using windows, you can see that effect on the frame of the very window you are looking at. It consists in add an imaginary light source and put a highlight border and a shadow border over the object edges.

6th - That technic is been used to fake bumpiness in game models since the models started having textures back in wolfenstein 3d in.. hmm.. early 90's, so it's not "noones technic" here nor was invented by some genius at this forums.

7th - This method allows a very good depth faking, but does not react at all to the light (you are using a painted diffuse only, so there's no way!!!), so it must be combined with speculars and normal maps if possible for better results.
In BC, you can get a decent result using speculars combined.

8th - Legacy supports normals. Thought i rather not speak of that game and it's GFX (personnaly i hate both, but that's only my very personal opinion).

[MarkyD]

Thanks for clearing that up.

[Dalek]

So, GIMP having a thingy under Filters/Maps/Bump Map is just like shortcutting beveling and embossing? Just double checking for my sake...

[limey BSc.]

Bump maps are not supported by any real time application.

5th - There are no "bump maps" or "bump filter" at all in photoshop.

Photoshop CS4's 3D mode allows you to paint bump maps directly onto a 3D model. Pretty sure that counts as a real time application, could be wrong though. It also produces the greyscale bump maps as opposed to the more colourful normal maps.

[Furyofaseraph]

There are real-time engines that support bump maps, but its simply not as powerful as normal maps.

[Kirk]

Cookie for Legacy for clearing that all up. Much appreciated.

[Legacy]

Photoshop CS4's 3D mode allows you to paint bump maps directly onto a 3D model. Pretty sure that counts as a real time application, could be wrong though. It also produces the greyscale bump maps as opposed to the more colourful normal maps.

Hm, no, that's a painting method, not a realtime renderer.
Ok it may even be a realtime renderer, but it's only a model viewer.
And yes, it produces a greyscale bump, which is just used as a renderer asset, not something you can use in a game or visualizer.
It's a painting tool, also a very GFX expensive one ( which in my machine is not really realtime, which is the reason i still avoid using it)
See, you are not free to rotate the model like you do in a 3d application, when you do rotate it, it'll recalculate everything and give you another 2d view of it.
Reason for that, is that it's precalculation and rendering the bumps effect max and min for that angle, and then interpolating what you paint, and not really doing then at realtime. That's why it's so chunky for you to change the model view.

There are real-time engines that support bump maps, but its simply not as powerful as normal maps.

Are you really sure of that?
If you point me one I'll stand back on my assertment, but as far as i know, there are no engines that will render a bump map in real-time without converting it to normals.

[MLeo]

In a way, bumpmaps are fake normal/paralax maps. "Good enough" on old hardware, but simply old stuff. You can even fake bumpmaps on even older hardware.
Bumpmaps are an approximation. They have artifacts, they are inferrior. A play of textures.

Actually similar to paralax mapping, except that it's implemented on a per pixel basis where the pixel is "moved".

http://nehe.gamedev.net/data/lessons/lesson.asp?lesson=22 about bumpmapping.