Quote - 12/18/07

"is that textures can be animated"

Gareee:

??? I know that textured objects/figures/models can be animated, so I don't understand what you mean that with normals maps, textures can be animated. In what way does Poser not now animate textures?

ghonma:

If normal maps have no more information in them than regular greyscale bump maps, then why do they have three channels (RGB), such that "values of each channel (color) usually represent the xyz coordinates of the normal in the point corresponding to that texel"?

If Second Life is using the wrong termonology for "vector displacement maps," might e-frontier be making the same mistake?

LMK

 

What I mean, is normal maps can be used for animating. Imagine completly changing the shape of an existing object with a change of a map... not replacing it, swapping in one object for another, but completly changing the objects shape.

You could possibly also do a gradual dissolve from one shape to another, and since you can animate textures already, even the textureing could be changed easily on the fly in an animation.

Imagine a banana slowly changing into an orange as a simple example... not a 2d image replacement, but a full 3d conversion.

Way too many people take way too many things way too seriously.