NormalMap V Bumpmap - Pro's and Con's

Tips for creating and manipulating planet textures for Celestia.
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Cormoran
Posts: 198
Joined: 28.07.2003
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NormalMap V Bumpmap - Pro's and Con's

Post #1by Cormoran » 03.08.2003, 11:40

No, this is not about a battle between Pokemon (Oh gods, my daughter is corrupting me lol).

I was wondering what the advantage of using a normalmap is over using a straight grey-scale bumpmap? I've tried both with no discernable differences in eventual render quality.

I hope some nice person will enlighten me, cos I'm sure there's a good reason.

btw: Don Edwards, love the texture maps. Lovely work :)
'...Gold planets, Platinum Planets, Soft rubber planets with lots of earthquakes....' The HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy, Page 634784, Section 5a. Entry: Magrathea

Psykotik
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Post #2by Psykotik » 03.08.2003, 12:57

There is one way to be definitely convinced : using the AltSurface, you define one texture with normalmap and one with bumpmap.

You rotate the Earth, you look at coasts, at montains, at islands, at lakes, and... you delete immediatly the bump texture, because you understand it wastes of space on your HD :lol:

I think NormalMap is an incredibly advance for Celestia. The effects are truly amazing !


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