BumpMap tutorials? Where?

yea im trying to find a tutorial on bump mapping also.

I think you are meaning the normalmap when refering to doom3, rather than painting it you render it from a highpolygonal model, with the same shape as the lowpolygonal.

1. model a highpoly model
2. model a lowpoly version of the highpoly model
3. use a program to make a normalmap out of the highpoly model for the lowpoly model, one free program would be orb

4. if needed, paint a grayscale bumpmap in some program like photoshop and convert to normalmap.

interesting. Thanks a lot. I'll try it. :D

Since normalmaps are fairly new I doubt that there is already a lot of source material for painting them. Like Eldron said, the doom3 maps were calculated from high poly models. I´m not sure if that´s an option since the effort involved is somewhat prohibitive... organic normalmaps can be handpainted, but it´s a bit tricky. Just play around a bit.

A quiet good procedure to make normal maps is Deep Paint 3D. It is a seperate program which takes over your model from 3D Studio MAX, Maya, Softimage and Lightwave.
With this great tool you can directly paint on your model, even the bump maps and light maps...

Try it out HERE

It really saves time and you can change your normal maps very detailed in realtime...

A (I find, better) alternative to Deep Paint 3D is: ZBrush. Their website shows great screenshots and everything looks very professional. =)

If I am not mistaken either ATI or NVidia have nifty tools to take 2 exported 3DS or Maya model (a low res and a hi res) and normal map them for you to the UV coords of I *think* the first model. Check around their sight. For those shader folks, check out render monkey.

There's a free 3DSMax plugin out there that works great for exporting to texture. It's got an option to export a texture as the normals of the model, on top of polygon, wireframe, and a bunch of other options. I haven't played around with it very much, but it's a good option if you want. And free! Free stuff rocks!

Normal mapping isn't exactly the same as bump mapping though, so be careful as to which one you actually mean.

As ever,
**Cosmic**