I came across a 3d object which had the following texture layers. Alpha, bump, colour, displacement, normal, specular. What is this "normal" layer used for? I have come across quite a few models (not poser) that has this layer in its setup? Also can poser use it? where would it go in the material room? What does it do? here is an example of what one looks like...

It's a height map, like a bump or displacement map.  I'm sure someone who knows more than me will give you the technical details :).

They have not been used in Poser for very long, as far as I know only Poser Pro 2010 can use them properly.

They are used alot in games to give details to a model.

John

Cool thanks. hmmm...I have poserpro2010, so If anybody can metion if there is any benefits of using this over or with the existing textering methods please spill the beans lol.

Bump and normal essentially are identical in terms of the outcome.

Bump is adjustable, normal is not. If you think being forced to adjust bump strength is a pain in the arse, then normal is better. If you think being not allowed to adjust bump strength is a pain in the arse, then bump is better.

Normal is a tiny bit faster than bump. On my machine, rendering around 500 thousand pixels of some surface, the normal mapped one will be 1 second less render time.

What channel do you attach a Normal to in PP2010? The bump channel?

PS - Who's Norma and why does she need a Map? (I couldn't resist!) :tt2:

The Gradient Bump and then use the pull-down to activate Normal Map tangent space.

Quote - What channel do you attach a Normal to in PP2010? The bump channel?

PS - Who's Norma and why does she need a Map? (I couldn't resist!) :tt2:

You plug it into the gradientbump channel, then switch mode to Normal (whichever Normal type map you are using).  As I remember the options are Tangent Space or Object Space (might be World Space), depending on the type of Normal Map you have generated.

John

PS. Norma needs a map because she is the long lost continent formerly known as Pangea, now found to be named Norma after some complicated pictograms were decrypted from some wall somewhere.

LOL! Thank you both! I wasn't aware of that feature in PP2010. Now all I need are Norma's Maps so I can test it out!

There are several programs and plugins which are designed to create normals.  And there are several tutorials available on the web detailing how to maximize the effects.  Free plugins exist for both Phototshop and GIMP, IIRC NVIDIA offers the free plugin for Photoshop, GIMP has it's own.

Option to use Normal map started with the first Poser Pro (it was not in P7).

PixPlant is good program to make the normal map

OOOOH, off to Google for the GIMP plugin. Its hard to beat free. Thanks for the heads up.

lmk

I'm using crazybump demo. It creates a batch of bump, displacement, specular, normal etc from your imported image.

There's a much cheaper program called ShadeMaster Pro which does the same thing as CrazyBump, I think there's also a free version as well, but I think that one doesn't have a GUI, I think its a command line one, can't remember right now