I have searched all over the net, and I am having a problem with bump mapping. Does anyone have a bump mapping tutorial hosted somewhere, or know of a good one? I am really looking for one that doesn''t cover anything else. I am fairly new to opengl, and lesson 22 seems to be just slightly over my head right now. Is lesson 22 as simple as bump mapping comes? In which case I better come back to the subject when I am more advanced, or is there an easier way to accomplish it?

The problem with lesson 22 is that it uses emboss bump mapping. That''s an obsolete technique, more some kind of (hard to understand) ''hack'' that was used when 3D cards weren''t powerful enough to handle ''real'' bumpmapping. It shouldn''t be used anymore.

You should search the web for DOT3 bump mapping. I don''t know of any simple tutorials right now, but perhaps www.nutty.org or www.delphi3d.net has some.

nVidia has a lots of stuff covering that, but it''s rather complex and intended for experienced users. You could still have a look though.

/ Yann

The problem is that older cards don''t support DOT3 bumpmapping in hardware... you should still try to read and understand tutorial 22. Of course DOT3 bumpmapping is easier to use and much faster if available.

And *much* better looking.

Emboss mapping still has it''s uses, as you said, older hardware doesn''t support DOT3. But he was looking for good and easy bumpmapping. So perhaps learn DOT3 first (this will already give you a notion about things like tangent vectors and binormals) and then learn emboss mapping afterwards. I personally think that DOT3 is easier to understand than emboss, but other people might disagree.

/ Yann

and how do you think we can evolve in technique if we always have to support too old to use hardware?

if you implement a game for todays hardware, it will NOT run on stuff that is too old simply because of speed.. a game that gets 200fps on a geforce4 is quite difficult yet to get smooth on a GEFORCE1! what do you think then about a tnt-one or some voodoos?!

take a geforce1 as low standart please, its soo cheap to get one (geforce2mx for example.. for nearly nothing..) and you can do bumpmapping.. for showing what is capable with a simple geforce1:

http://tyrannen.starcraft3d.net/PerPixelLighting

have fun..

and just drop the old hardware PLEAAAAAAAAASE the difference is getting much too big, very very much too big

daveperman:

With this attitude, you''ll *never* sell a title on the professional game market. It might be OK for a hobby project, you only run at home, but definitely not if you want to go further.

The original poster is a beginner, so it is a good idea to practice the magic word number one of game development from the beginning on: scaleability.

As I mentioned, emboss shouldn''t be used anymore as a *primary* game effect on highend hardware. But there should *always* be a fallback for lowend hardware. You won''t believe how many people still have a TNT or Voodoo based board.

/ Yann

i knew this will come..

its just bullshit.. geforce1 is now out for 3 years.. enough time for everyone who wants to play good looking 3dgames to at least buy a geforce1..

and don''t think the big companies think different.. our most loved carmack does not care about the old hardware at all with saying doom3 will run on gf3 on 30fps or less.. think about this.. what you want with a TNT then?

and in fact i know only one person wich does not use at least e geforce1 for now.. most of the people who wanted to play todays games like serious sam or max paine buyed a geforce2mx.. its damn cheap isn''t it?

i know 2 persons not owning a nvidia-gpu.. developing for this platform finds quite a big part of gamers.. and supporting them directly gets huge improvements on theyr hardware so that even on a geforce1 you get damn good quality games today..

take your gpu as base and develop for it.. when you''re finished, it''ll be a good standart... that way we evolve.. not with staying at the tnt''s..

geforces introduced:
(very) simple pixelshading, for first bumpmapeffects with dot3
t&l for fast geometry processing (with VAR, a dream.. terrible dream but at least a dream)
cubemaps (once you learned how they work, you''ll love''em)

geforce3 introduced:
(very) simple dependend texture accesses for bumpy reflections etc..
3dtextures
vertexprograms..

yes i know ati was faster in some of the stuffies, but i only talk about nvidia here cause its more known.. i love the ati myself and can''t wait coding raytracing for it.. (yes!)

take gf1 or gf3 as standart, depending on the quality you want to get.. geforce1 is for mainstream games, geforce3 for graphic-games like a quake4 would be, or doom3

be realistic, no one cares about games that run slow on todays hardware (wich is when you try to support everyone)

be realistic, you can''t code for every gpu in another way.. coding for ati,geforce1 and geforce3 is enough stuff... not try to support bumpmapping on older harddware, just drop it if its not supported!

This is really getting OT

As I said, you won''t get very far in the realworld with that attitude. Try to get a publishing contract for your GeForce4 only game... Have fun...

bullshit i said GEFORCE ONE
and a geforce one is now really nothing new

and i told my statement about bumpmapping: use hardware that supports it, don''t try to fake it with embross on old hardware.. if you have a game for new hardware you will not have enough speed on old hardware to do embross at all.. you will be lucky if you get it with simple texturing working smooth there

and getting publishers for geforce+ and radeon+ products is quite easy cause the target-marked for real gamers do at least have one of those gpu''s..

i''m not talkin about geforce4.

i just told you what steps are existing.. pre-geforces, geforce1+, and geforce3+.. the 3 major different gpu-designs..

radeons are geforce1+, raeon8500 is more than geforce4 and like that geforce3+..


and i really want to get rid of the people using the old gpu''s.. if you continue supporting obsolent hardware you will never get rid of it. and we have to if we want to have some of the new gpu''s as standart in near or far future.

and i could not give bether links than yet given, cause i learned all my stuff from there

if you get some questions, ask. i hope i have the answer ready..

i just suggest one thing: learn how lighting works.. i mean the vertex-lighting.. if you understand this lighting-equation you understand quite fast how bumpmapping works.. simple and more complex ones..