Bump Mapping

[FreakSoftware]

What is bump mapping?

[OneSadCookie]

A technique for adding detail to a 3D scene via the per-pixel lighting of each rasterized triangle based on the normal at each vertex, the direction of the light, and a height- or normal-map of the triangle's surface at a higher resolution than the underlying geometry.

;) :p

[FreakSoftware]

Originally posted by OneSadCookie
A technique for adding detail to a 3D scene via the per-pixel lighting of each rasterized triangle based on the normal at each vertex, the direction of the light, and a height- or normal-map of the triangle's surface at a higher resolution than the underlying geometry.

;) :p

Oh ok. BTW, that did make sense :p

[OneSadCookie]

I knew it made sense, I just didn't know if it was going to be any use to someone who didn't know what bump-mapping was.

I wonder if I could have stated it as concisely and precisely whilst making it still more difficult to understand :confused:

[Feanor]

Originally posted by OneSadCookie
I knew it made sense, I just didn't know if it was going to be any use to someone who didn't know what bump-mapping was.

I wonder if I could have stated it as concisely and precisely whilst making it still more difficult to understand :confused:

Replace it with the lighting calculation equation or something. Math is the most concise, most difficult to understand way of writing any quantitative procedure. :p

For the uninitiated, it means making flat surfaces look bumpy, by drawing fake shadows on the surface around where you want bumps to be. Personally, I wasn't aware of the method using the vertices. I'm familiar with the DOT3 method, which using a second texture of the same size as the rgb texture to store the normal to the matching pixel. The bump texture uses the r, g and b values to store x, y and z values for the normal. When you see a bump texture, it always looks freaky because it looks like a false-light version of the original texture, and usually has pinkish and cyanish look to it.

Download the DOT3 sample code from Apple to see an example.

--FÎanor