The textures I have extracted from Skyrim have their own normal maps already and I am just bored of creating a bump map for every single texture I want to use. Can I use normal maps in Halo? And how do I do it?
Edited by AlekosGR on Dec 26, 2013 at 10:52 AM

I don't think OS cares if they are normal or bump maps.

Yes you can.
Its been a while but i think you just compile the bitmap then change the setting in guerilla to 32 bit and dont recompile.

Thanks guys, this is going to save me a lot of time!

Hey I was about to make an other thread now, but since this one is active, Clicker I have a issue man. I tried doing it the way you sugested, it worked perfectly. But when I try to add it in the OS_Guerilla as a extra feature to a biped, it causes an error and Sapien won't load it :/

It's ok nevermind, OS is too hardcore for me anyways. I will just do it with the regular process... Thanks for the help btw :D

Waffles, I did EXACTLY that, yet sapien crashes.

Hmmm... I think I have the backpack wepon script enabled... I check that out. Thanks

lol you never even mention normal maps.

No they are not.
There are a variety of types of normal map (they are blue or green and red) and they carry different information.
Bump maps are simply black and white representing depth.
Also if you change the word "normal" to "bump" in this thread title then what?
Edited by Maniac1000 on Dec 26, 2013 at 06:37 PM

ok

Champion !

I thought height maps could be converted to normal/bump maps.

Yes Jesse they can be converted.
They are not the same thing, normals hold much more info than a bump.

Guys I did some amazing job with my normals, they work perfectly with Halo CE, I will post pics soon :D They are incredible!

height maps can also be used to create a parallax effect

To be more exact, they are easily used as an interchangeable term as they give almost the same exact effect. While they are not the same like you said, there isn't a totally big difference, and most game engines today will convert a bump map into normal map easily.

Essentially, a normal map has color if you've ever seen one. It takes RGB to process the data, and essentially is able to skip the entire normalization of the texture because of this rather than a regular heightmap in greyscale. Basically it offsets in XY and Z based on the 3 colors, rather than JUST Z like a hiehgtmap. Both have upsides and downsides, eg normal maps are cheaper since they are already calculated but needs to use more data to save it since it has 3 more floats in RGB. Bump maps aren't as cheap, but don't use as much data either.

And additionally, while it dosen't matter as much, normal mapping is also pre-processed, while bump mapping is generally post processed.

i agree with u and mootjuh, it'd be nice to have some fancy OS shaders to toy with, but i'm not too great with hlsl so i'm hoping somebody else is... also it'd be nice to have some awesome distortions like the ones in DMC devil may cry.

Arent normals and bumps the same?

Since you obviously have no idea what you are talking about.

Bump maps work more like a virtual heightmap where its faking directionless height changes in the shading of the surface. Normal maps aren't height maps but "direction" maps that add or subtract onto the real normal of the surface, sort of like a bump map, but you describe the direction rather than the height.

they are

I know some people over at http://ultimate3d.org/ with tons of shader knowledge, you can try asking them. they're the guys that helped make my cubemap previewer.