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Ok, I'm trying to add bumpmap/specular to my Garand with Meshtool4, but the readme is a bit unclear(or I'm just a n00b ) on some things.

-Do I have to create a bumpmap texture seperately, or does Meshtool do that for me?
-Do I have to put my textures in a certain folder when I run Meshtool?

Thank's .

You have to create a bumpmap, how should meshtool know what do you want to have which heights?
Name it originaltexturename_bump.tga, it needs an alphachannel and you dont need to have it in a particular folder when bumpmapping the appropriated model with meshtool

Ok I get it.

What kind of alphachannel do I need to give my bumpmap???

You don't need an alpha channel on a bumpmap. A bumpmap is essentially a shadow map, all it needs to work is a black-and-white-and-greyscale image.

black, white, and grayscale?

Does that mean I just need to convert my texture to grayscale, mess around with the contrast/brightness untill I get it to the point I wan't it, then just name it my texture's name_bump???

jedi_pilot wrote:black, white, and grayscale?

Does that mean I just need to convert my texture to grayscale, mess around with the contrast/brightness untill I get it to the point I wan't it, then just name it my texture's name_bump???

That would technically work, although your results may not be to your liking. A model uses a bumpmap to define what parts of an object look sunken in versus "raised." The darker any specific part is on your bump map, the "deeper" that part of the model will look.

I never got around to trying it, but you ight want to take a look at this.

http://www.crazybump.com/

A little application that makes Bump and or normal maps for you.

"Crazybump is such a life saver. Its abilities are top notch"

Bobby Rice
World Builder
Pandemic Studios




"I found myself making nice normalmaps within thirty seconds of installing it"

Jason Mojica
Level Designer
Raven Software




"It’s really helping us to make some quality game assets!"

Will Fuller
Environment Artist
EA Chicago

I was wondering if anyone can post a texture and the bumpmap texture or something so that the ones that dont know how to do this, (that includes me), understands completly what we have to do.

fai222 wrote:I was wondering if anyone can post a texture and the bumpmap texture or something so that the ones that dont know how to do this, (that includes me), understands completly what we have to do.

There are lots of texture/bumpmap texture pairings in the assets - you can use those for a point of reference; they're going to be better than any example we can post.

there are some textures and bumpmaptextures in the assets...
the bumpmap has the same laypout as the normal texture, fill iw tih grey (50% white, 50% black)
then mark and darken the parts you want to be pushed in and select and brighten the parts you want to be pushed out
most of the shipped bumpmaps are just greyscales of the original texture, thats not the way you should go...

fai222 wrote: I was wondering if anyone can post a texture and the bumpmap texture or something so that the ones that dont know how to do this, (that includes me), understands completly what we have to do.

You could just take a look half way down the page of threads and notice:

Teancum wrote:Take a look at the pictures in this article. They explain how bump mapping works really well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumpmap

Caleb1117 wrote:I never got around to trying it, but you ight want to take a look at this.

http://www.crazybump.com/

A little application that makes Bump and or normal maps for you.

"Crazybump is such a life saver. Its abilities are top notch"

Bobby Rice
World Builder
Pandemic Studios




"I found myself making nice normalmaps within thirty seconds of installing it"

Jason Mojica
Level Designer
Raven Software




"It’s really helping us to make some quality game assets!"

Will Fuller
Environment Artist
EA Chicago

THAT is extremely usefull! I'm using it for all my heroes/vehicles now..

dude.. thanks

I think i got it now. I have been on that page before but i didnt notise it.

Okay, now one more question from me.. Should there be .option files? And for what? The mesh? The bump texture? And how should they look like?

I don't think there needs to be a .option file for the bumpmap, but I'm a n00b when it comes to this so I wouldn't know for sure ...

Anyway, I'll try and download that program, and see what it does for me ...

You can make a bumpmap with a .msh.option (and then your bump.tga would need a .tga.option), but if you're using Rep's mesh exporter, it makes a bump+specular map, and in that case the bumpmap is part of the material in the mesh, and you don't need any .option files to set it up.

Caleb1117 wrote:I never got around to trying it, but you ight want to take a look at this.

http://www.crazybump.com/

A little application that makes Bump and or normal maps for you.

Yep, that's a great application but it cost $$$:

crazybump.com wrote:CrazyBump Professional $299 USD ( Volume discounts available! )
CrazyBump Personal $99 USD ( For non-commercial use )
CrazyBump Educational $69 USD ( For students and teachers )

and the demo version is a 30 day trial.

Here's another good one:
http://shadermap.com/index.php
the Shadermap CL(Command Line) version is free.

Yeah, I found out crazybump was a payware program after I went to the site .

I'll try out the other program though. Thank's for the link .

AceMastermind wrote:Here's another good one:
http://www.shadermap.renderingsystems.com/
the Shadermap CL(Command Line) version is free.

Thank you! I've been looking all over the place for a free bumpmap generator.