For us underfunded artists, here's some bump options that are free: (reposted from page 21)

On the next page, someone also mentioned SSBump Generator. I did finally install and try it out some time ago, but for whatever reason, it's very finicky on my machine and stalls out when making maps. Might work for someone else though!

 

Okie dokie; For a bump map with gimp (2.6 is the latest I have for stability) with your base image, load as usual and go to colors, invert. Then go to colors again, move down to Components, and mouse click on the extension Channel Mixer. A pop up box will show the red, green, blue channels and some sliders beneath it. You'll want to check the monochromatic to put it into black and white. You can further adjust the RGB values if you want more black or white, but for a bump, the standard readout should be fine.

When you're satisfied, click OK, then go up to Filters at the top and drop down to Maps. Mouse over the extention to Bump.

Another box pops up with some adjustments.

In the pop-up box, there's a few things to play with. I usually focus on Elevation and Depth. Both are fairly self explanatory. You'll have to raise both typically, sometimes around 50 for elevation and 20-30 for depth. Experiment a bit. When you're satisfied, hit OK and a green bar goes across the bottom for processing. Two or three seconds, voila! Bump map.

If or when you should go the Normal map route (search for the plug-in, it's free also), you can use this same method to make it a bump map, then go to Filters-->Maps-->Normalmap (this is how it looks in the window). In the normal map pop-up, the default Filter should say 4 color in a selection box at the top. 

Then the elevation is replaced by Minimum Z (in hundreth's or thousandth's of a value, like .001, or .01 etc).  Then there is Scale, which quantifies the effect. 2-5 should be plenty. If your texture is going seamless, click wrap. Check your preview box, and if you like it, hit OK. Another processing green bar, then you should get that lovely, purple normal map.

I usually save them in the same folder as the source texture and name it xxxx_bump or xxx_normal, just so they're all handy to select when you get to Studio. They also transfer right along into Reality!

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