How Bump Mapping Works

The Chef writes: "Tweak3D has a pretty good article explaining how bump mapping works with 3D accelerated video cards. They cover all the basics of bump mapping and the advantages and disadvantages of several methods. Now if someone asks me how per-pixel shading or environment mapped bump mapping works, I'll have an answer (but I'm not sure if that's a good thing)." With the introduction of the new graphics cards, this is some interesting reading.

Comments

An open question

[JosephMast]

for all the hard core gamers out there... does this sort of technology really help make better games?
On one hand I really am impressed with the impressive graphics that are apparent in the majority of today's games, and perhaps this will allow game designers to think less about the technology (even "bad" code can hit 60fps with a smoking graphics card) and work on the game...
On the other hand, I think that technology shouldn't be the focus of a good game (aka who cares if the orange is triple pass bump mapped at 140 fps if the game isn't fun to play) while games like diablo (640x480 resolution) still get dusted off and played.... any thoughts?

Bump mapping the nVIDIA way

[Ella the Cat]

I was in a hurry and my machine fell over as I was about to post this interesting link from the nVIDIA site. Lots to learn about therein. Sorry if I posted twice, give me a break.