Quote - The same trick can be used to create "quick and dirty" bump/displacement maps from a color texture.

The "quick and dirty" method consists of desaturating and inverting the color map. See the attached .JPG file for the material room setup.

Note: the bump map will look quite dark. In fact, after inverting the image map (using the formula bumpValue= 1-colorValue) I subtract another 0.5, which gets you both positive and negative bump in the same map.

I see this a lot. It relies on the premise that darker areas on the color map are actually raised on a human figure. Examples- nipples, eyebrows, chest hair, moles etc. But don't get carried away. There are other dark areas that actually should be lowered, not raised, such as pores. If you're not careful, you're going to get raised pores which is going to look mighty strange.

Also, a lot of color maps made from photos have burned in specular highlights, from tiny raised bumps on the skin. What happens to these when you invert? They get lowered - not the effect you want.

---

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)