I have Poser 5. It's still a bit buggy, and a memory hog, but there's stuff it does well. But how can I make a prop with a bump map (or a displacement map) (or should that be a bump gradient map?) which will work properly within Poser 4? Yes, I know about the version-number tag in the files. And I think I can puzzle out, from samples, what can be deleted. But there is still stuff which isn't clear. Can I assume that the P4 render engine in P5 will show similar results to plain P4?

No. To start, P4 won't take a displacement map at all. As for a bump map, you'll need to make it by hand as an actual image file. It should be grayscale and conform to the texture map. IIRC, you'll also need to save the bump map in .bum format. Hope that helps.

A displacement map is greyscale too... But it may have a different zero-level. I gather that a P4 bumpmap has a mid-tone as zero level. Conform? You mean the same UV mapping? One thing which puzzles me is that I see bump maps which are obviously just greyscale copies of the texture.

There are other issues about P5 materials that won't apply in P4. Poser 4 only has diffuse color, ambient color, highlight color, and reflection color/map (in addition to the bump map, that is). Poser 5 has secondary ambients and reflections, etc etc etc., and tons more options for them.

What I usually do is provide the bump map in JPG format, because BUM files are ridiculously too large to zip and distribute. As for applying the bump map, I would rather NOT apply the jpg but give instructions in the readme for how to do so. The reason for this is so that P4 won't get lost in limbo by looking for a BUM file that isn't there.

Message edited on: 10/30/2004 09:14

A P4 bum map is weird colors and has embossed channels. Poser Pro Pack uses a standard greyscale bump but can also use a P4 embossed style .bum (which is actually a .bmp). P5 can use a .bum, but it has to be plugged into the gradient bump channel. What I used to do was provide information in the Readme that told P4 users which files to convert to .bum so the MAT poses would work properly. Now I pre-convert (with the weird embossed channels), save as a .jpg, and make the P4 MAT poses point to the P4-style bump (yes, P4 can read a .jpg for bump, but it has to be pre-converted and it has to be applied by a MAT pose and not manually). bonni

What i would suggest regarding the bumpmap problem, is save a version of the model with no bump map applied, but include a jpg or bmp greyscale to use for one. Then include instructions for the user to load that manually (at which time P4 will convert it into a .bum) and re-save it with the converted bump map applied.

Antonia,

P4's material section on poses and other files does not include the Shader Tree information in a P5 file. The best way to see the difference is to open a P5 mat pose file, and look at the parameters. You'll see section called "Shader Tree" that P4 and PP won't have.

Now, as to bump files. Make the bump in greyscale the same way you would for P5, then on the P4 pose, reference a non-existant .bum file. In your readme, you tell the user to they must convert the jpg bump file to a .bum file in P4. Many vendors don't include actual .bum files for size considerations (they're much bigger than .jpg files), and use this method. Daz has instructions on how to do this at their site.

Message edited on: 10/30/2004 20:11

Message edited on: 10/30/2004 20:12