So I'm trying to bring out the chrome qualities of a chopper in the materials room. I need to hook up a new node to my gradient bump but for the life of me I can't find the bump map node. Can someone lead me down the garden path. To little sleep ... there must be an easy answer. I've attached a pic of what I know works.... from a previous thread.

A "bump map" node is just a 2D image_map Node that has been renamed.

Forgot to add.  That when working with metal material, in order to get the reflective quality don't forget to use "RayTracing" in the Firefly render settings. Set it to 4 bounces.  You also need to have something in the scene along with the metal object to reflect off of.  A sky dome is a great thing, or some props strategically placed off screen.

RDNA has a free sky dome in their free stuff area. 

I don't like to use the dome as a background, so I tend to tilt it up using the X Axis parameter dial until it vanishes from scene window.  I still get the benefits of the sky dome, but it's not being rendered as part of my scene.

If you look at your master node list where you have the bump attached to the gradient bump node ... count up 6, right above Displacement, is the Bump node.  Just connect to your bump map from there and it will automatically disconnect from the Gradient Bump node.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Gradient_Bump node in P7 is only there to support the 'old' style .bum bump map files, so you don't have to convert them to jpgs to plug into the Bump node.

If my memory is letting me down again, can anyone explain what the Gradient_Bump node is for?

Sorry, question answered from the manual. My memory was correct, but you have to use the P4 render engine and tick 'ignore shader trees' for it to work. It won't work in Firefly.

RDNA has some great materials in their free stuff area. Everything from metal to fabric and brick.  To use them just go to the material room, pick the part of the object you want to apply the material too and double click the icon in the library. The material is applied. No fuss or muss.  They did the hard work :)

Of course that doesn't mean you can tweak things once you are familiar with the material room. But usually when it comes to metals you don't have to do much tweaking if it's a good set of materials, which the RDNA ones are.

Ahh, thank you again Acadia and gang for bearing with me and proding excellent ideas. I'll check out the RDNA materials for sure because I'm such a ditz in materials room that if something works, and it's free, I'll go for it as opposed to endless plodding connecting nodes that I have no frigging idea of why I am doing so :-) I did get the chrome to work with the nodes method. despite the lack of gradient bump connection so seemed to not be needed.