I bought quite a batch of products from Daz this week (pay day!) and I had to spend ages converting bum map jpgs. If you install your model in P4, expecting it to work, after all you paid for it, and simply try to use it, so often you get the 'can't find the bum file' message. If you tell it not to continue to look for missing files there are four possible outcomes

1 - the model loads anyway and you can convert the bum files and load them with the materials option (a very rare occurrence in my experience)

2 - The model does not load, but you can load some other model, convert the bum files with materials, and then load your new model successfully (a little more common)

3 - Poser crashes and you have to use CTRL-ALT-DEL to close it down, and then reopen it and load any old model to convert the files (by far the most likely outcome)

4 - Your whole PC crashes, even CTRL-ALT-DEL is inaccessible because keyboard and mouse have frozen, and the PC reset button is the only way out (common enough to be really annoying)

Why cannot Daz and anyone else selling models, do the conversion and put the bum files in the zip or exe? I am not addressing this to people who give their models for free - we should be very grateful for their generosity and not demand more than they are prepared to give, though paradoxically the freebie creators are the ones who most commonly include bum maps with their models.

But when we pay for something, we surely have the right to expect it to be complete and working for all versions it is supposed to be compatible with. It would not take the creators long to convert the files and include them. But they sell thousands of copies to people who then have to go through all this aggravation before they can use the product. You don't buy a car and expect to have to put the wheels on yourself or spray paint it yourself. So why do we accept buying Poser models that are unusable without all this work from the buyer?

Daz are far and away the worst offenders at this, but there are others too. Please, if you take our money, give us a fully working product.

Carol

I convert the bum maps for our models, but it is mostly because the bum maps are so large they are trying to save people time who are on dial up....just a guess. Sharen

There is a very good reason for including jpg files instead of bum files, file size! The downloads have steadily increased in size over the years & including bum files depending on size could easily add up to 100Mb to the download file size. I agree it is a little inconvenient having to convert the files but would you rather download 15Mb & convert or 115Mb & not convert? I know which I'd rather do.

Hi c1rcle.....:-)

Also for those of us without Poser 4, there's no real way of making the .bum. Sure there's something about a greenish picture you can make, but since it ALSO makes the filsize so much bigger I guess it's a combination. Personally I hate when there's .bum in a file. I have no need for them on Poser pro Pack or Poser 5 and all they do is to fill up my prescious disk space ;o)

hellooooo Sharen :)

Perhaps a compromise then - offer a second zip with the bum maps in for those who want them. I would certainly rather download 100MB if I need them than reboot my PC because I was so eager to use the model that I forgot to check if there were files to be converted and it froze when Poser tried to load a model without them. Daz already offer the templates separately so why not the bum files too?

I know Sams3d always include them, and Sharen's wonderful models always load and perform perfectly first time.

If the bum files would make the downloads enormous, then at least make them available to those who would find downloading them less of a chore than going through all the models you buy to see if they are any. That way they would not force themselves on those who either do not need them, or would find downloading them too slow on dialup. And those on dialup would know when there are files to be converted, because they would see that the bum file was on offer.

The fact that a bum file is enormous does not change the fact that the model which needs one is usually unusable without it.

Carol

Attached Link: http://www.morphography.uk.vu/bumpmaps.html

This is a difficult one. The fact is that Poser 4 for Windows doesn't convert the .JPG into a .BUM properly (see link). For some maps it doesn't matter, but when it does, my approach is to make the corrected .BUM available as a separate download. The other thing that is worth doing is to remove all bump maps that automatically load from a library file (CR2, PP2 or HR2). These have compatibility issues as well as being inconvenient for Poser 4 users who can't wait, or who don't bother to read the readme file. :-) Depending on the image's point of view and lighting, a bump map sometimes contributes nothing, so I prefer to load them by hand and save memory when they're not needed. A MAT pose that applies the bump map alone can be provided if wanted - and this can have a P4 and a PP/P5 version.

Attached Link: http://www.poserpros.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=23512

I want to second what EnglishBob said. I would very much appreciate it if bump maps were not applied on the model when distributed, and instead there was a MAT pose to apply them if desired. Because of the way Poser 4 handles bump maps, I find they rarely look good in my images. If I need bump maps, I export to a different program, which then uses the greyscale jpgs. Having bump maps applied to the model just takes up memory for me because I don't have a very good way to remove them from the library file except to do it by hand or resave from Poser.

I read a post a while back on how to create your bums (giggles) from the JPG by converting to grayscale in photoediting software, adding contrast, and then saving as a filename_bum.jpg file. It worked for me on P4 before I went to P5.

That's what we in the trade call a 'fake bum'. :D It may give the appearance of working in some cases, but it isn't really a bump map.

On some of their models, (for example, the Creature Creation Pack), Daz makes the .bum files available as a separate download for those who need them.

There is a photoshop action that makes bum files, that is what I use to test my P4 mat files. Including them in the file we upload to stores might not be cost effective for the store hosting them, it is not just a question of how long it would take for the customer to download. As to bump maps not looking good, it is very often a question of poor lighting, this became apparent to me when looking at my beta tester renders getting wildly different result with the same items. Good lighting can make or break a render I strongly recommend using the complex lighting rigs that are available commercially as well the free ones. The bump map in my opinion is as important as the texture and sometimes more so. If you go to my homepage here you will see a suit which relies on only a bump map and a reflection map for it's detailing. All my items have bump maps, even if they are applied with a low intensity they give the model added realism, nothing in life is completely smooth and flat.

Cut down your .bum file size: change the file ending to .bmp, open with your favorite image editing software (I use Paintshop), reduce the colour depth right down to 16 colours (use error diffusion or your equivalent method for keeping it as close to the original as possible), save the file, change the file ending back to .bum. It still works fine within Poser, but it'll be about a quarter of the file size, maybe more for some files. Not as small as a .jpg, but a far more realistic size for download. I will, however, echo the call for MAT pose files rather than ready-applied bump maps.

Personally I do not like BUMs applied to the models when I put them in the library, I always go through any model and REMOVE the BUM call by either changing it to JPG or replacing it with NO_MAP. Even Poser4 will load a JPG into the BUM slot. Reasons: 1) I once found over 3GIG of BUM files built up in my texture folders. 2) BUM files take longer to load when I still have a LOT of posing and other characters to work with before I need them. 3) add a few Mil folk to a scene, complete with BUMs applied, and then try to add all the other elements to the scene (many of which have BUMs too) and watch how Poser begins to slow, then creep, then jerk...... Nope, I don't add BUMs untill I am ready to render - it makes my test renders go faster too. Then I delete them when I delete the PZ3 for the last time. It's just more economical all the way around for me. IMO

Oh, and did I mention that I also find that all too many BUMs downloaded are nothing more then the actuall colored texture ran through Poser's convertion, or at best a desaturated version then Poser converted? I often don't like these 'straight convertions' and like to "enhance" them a bit before converting. Straight grey scales do not always put white where white should be or black where black should be. And sometimes there is not enough contrast in the grey scale to get the best out of a BUM, so I use a paint program and fix it before converting it. IMO

I'm on a Mac but I use the freebie "Graphic Converter" and, so far, it works like a charm. You can batch convert too so it makes converting several files a one step process. Having said that, I do agree that most of the best textures I've seen (Morris comes to mind) don't use bumpmaps, so I'm not sure what the benefit is.