[Bf-committers] Re: parallaxmap error

[joeedh]

Arne Schmitz wrote:

>Am Freitag, 17. Dezember 2004 22:36 schrieb Martin Poirier:
>  
>
>>Except that normal map would probably be more accurate
>>since you don't have to derivate the new normal from
>>the height map, it's directly given to you.
>>    
>>
>
>On the contrary -- normal maps will almost always be 8 bit only, so there is a 
>quantisation error introduced into the normals. The normals computed from a 
>bump map are at least as accurate, since they also will be bilinearly 
>interpolated.
>
>Arne
>  
>
I've tested this, and normal maps are not the same as bump mapping.  As 
Ton stated earler, you can actually make a cube look like a sphere (from 
certain angles) with a normal map.   There nice for making spherical 
bump shapes, which bumpmapping can't really do very well.

joeedh