Hi all,

Does anyone has a bumpmapping shader that uses grayscale bumpmaps?

i have some set of textures that i bought long time ago, but all bump maps are grayscale like this:



is there a shader that can use this bumpmaps, or do i have to convert them to normal maps(if thats even possible to create proper normal maps).

I am not completely sure, but if I think it all together in right way, I would say that those bump maps are nothing else but heightmaps. Programs like xNormal should allow to convert it to a normalmap while keeping most of the quality, but I think that even the gamestudio function bmap_to_normals or what ever it is called and those plugins for gimp and photoshop are converting it the right way and should thus result in a good normalmap when generating from a heightmap.
But you should think about some kind of a specularity map. In my opinion a greyscale version of the texture works quite well in most cases if you darken it and raise the contrast.
I don´t think that there is an effective way to use those bump maps in a modern shader, but I think that those dot3 bump mapping fixed function effects were meant to use such bump maps.

This is a in my opinion great article about different methods of bump mapping from 1999 when bump mapping was high tech: http://www.3dconcept.ch/artikel/bump/index.html The "problem" is that it is german...
As I am already at it... This is a great glossary of 3d graphics: http://www.ericchadwick.com/portfolio/glossary/glossary.html It is old but in my opinion great to understand and it seems to be very correct. This link is in english btw...

Thanks for the help Nils, much apprecieted. I needed specmaps too... ill convert them to normalmaps and generate specmaps by changing contrast/doin some color operations.

for this texture i'd suggest you to use some film grain like spec texture.

this type of grayscale bumpmapping is called dot3 mapping afai remember from old engines such as cnc Renegade.