Normal Map Filters for GIMP and PS

[Emor D'ni Lap]

Page 95 of Cyan's Plasma documentation mentions a plug-in for Photoshop that can generate Normal maps from a given texture.

That plug-in...and others...can be downloaded from Nvidia at:
https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-text...-photoshop

But note that Page 96/97 of the Plasma manual lists a bunch of limitations on bump mapping in URU, among them:

• Bump mapping only works with runtime lighting.
  
• The object being bump mapped can't have scaling on it.
  
• Bump mapping currently won't work with composite materials.
  
• You can't apply bump mapping in a way that requires it to render with another layer (like being seen through a transparent alpha texture)
  

...altogether, nearly a prohibitive list unless you really target that one texture as crucial to your needs!

[Calena]

Here's a link to an equivalent plug-in for Gimp 2.0 and above:

http://registry.gimp.org/node/69

I've incorporated normal maps on textures rendered in URU:CC and using Blender to build. Even though I still have a lot to learn about this technique, I was still able to improve the quality of my textures significantly. I haven't tried it yet with Cyan's plugin, but I'm looking forward to learning how to do this.