Quote - A bump map made from a color map isn't ideal because of different things like specularity of skin and camera flash, angle of the shot, etc. If you make a bump map from a grayscale color map, it actually looks in some places like your bump is going outward rather than inward when it's rendered. Take leather for instance. If you photograph leather, the white area's around the skin's creases are where the leather is picking up the light reflection. 9 times out of 10 it's around the edges of the bumps and not the deepest part of them nor the highest part of them: the peak and valley of the bump so to speak. So if this is used for the bump, it looks "off" because it's the valley that you want to be the deepest part and the very tops that you want to be the highest part. What I just described would make the edges around the bumps the highest part, leaving a "dimple" where the bump should be the highest. I hope that makes sense :o).

This gets said often, & I am not knocking it, but I would say 99% of the textures out there use a grey scaled diffuse for a bump map. When this issue comes up & it does often, it has been asked how to make 'proper' bump maps, the answers are always vague & unhelpful, it is like it is a trade secret that people don't want to give away, or people don't really know & are pretending they do. So I will ask yet again , anyone up for explaining how to make 'proper' bump maps!

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