Is anyone familiar with this open source program.  I'd like to use it to enhance my "bump" maps in Poser and Blender.  I've seen tutorials on Crazy Bump, but it's way too expensive.  All opinions appreciated.

I use Shadermap 3, but for normal maps mainly.  It can make AO, and Displacement maps as well, but they don't translate well into Poser.  With the right tweaking in program, the normals are really rather good.  There are no bump maps on this render (It's WIP- still have tweaking to do in some areas), just displacement for the veins and the normals made in Shadpermap.

What is the cost of this program?  I'm on the cheap, looking for a freebie to do this.

I see the app xNormal thrown around quite a bit. I've never used it, but I've seen it mentioned enough times that it can't be that bad, and it can generate ssbumps since 2008. It's free.

"Added support for Self-Occlusion Radiosity Normal Maps ( SSBUMP), used in directional light mapping ( in both projective rendering and also in the height map/normal map tool."

http://www.xnormal.net/1.aspx

Can Poser use ssbumps?

It's going for about 49.95 or so- http://shadermap.com/buynow/

Well worth it, in my opinion. 

Boni, please try the free SSbump and let us know. If it's free and it works, that would be wonderful.

just for curiosity: why are normal maps expected to have benefits over bump maps - in Poser renders, that is.

In my understanding (so please tell me where I go wrong)

 * bump maps represent some displacement (without doing the displacement itself), and are easy for further / user manipulation (add, multiply, brightness/contrast enhance)
 * from that, normal distortions at the object surface are derived via complex calculations
 * then those distortions are applied

while for normal maps the first two steps are performed in a seperate program, saved in a normal map, and then the third step is derived from that map. That is why using normal maps just require far less calculation efforts at render time, therefor they are preferred in the gaming environment with high FPS rates. But normal maps themselves are not suit for further / user manipulation anymore. 

Support for normal maps in Poser is for this reason: when you've got a model from a gaming area, including its textures and normal map, you can import it into Poser and thanks to Posers ability to deal with the normal map, you can render it out with decent results. But normal maps were never seen as the next step to bump mapping. In my view that is. 

According to one of the premium tutorials here on Renderosity, normal maps are supposed to render faster. 

I've used InsaneBump, which is a free program that generates normal maps and bump maps. It also previews them with a moving light source, which helps you spot things like moire and so on. It also edits already existing normal maps. I fixed up quite a few procedural ones made in Filterforge that rendered terribly in Poser before being fixed. Now they're very nice. Worth looking at. :)

@Nanette: yes it will render faster as it can skip the before mentioned calculation steps. But no, you won't notice the difference unless you render out long animations.

They do render faster - on a 30-minute bump map render, you will see a normal map take 29 minutes 59.9 seconds. You save 100 milliseconds.

As aRtBee said " they are preferred in the gaming environment with high FPS rates." In a game, saving even a few milliseconds is important, where each render has to be done in 16 milliseconds.

This requirement hasn't got a leg to stand on when you are already at 30 MINUTES for a render.

Filter Forge does make normal maps from textures. There are a few filters you can download for Filter Forge for making normal maps. Each different in their own way - granted it's not free. Photoshop CC can make bump maps and normal maps under the filter - 3d tool option (Not free either). I don't like their normal maps much but their bumps maps are great. I tend to take the bump maps I make in Photoshop and open them in Gimp. I have a Gimp plug-in which is free that makes normal maps. The plug-in allows you to to adjust so many things. You can make the normal map really 'detailed' or 'just a wee bit' depending on your need.

Gimp Normal Plug-In

I see a more detailed bump in samples using normal bumps, and I have an ulterior motive here, as I want my Poser scenes to be imported into Blender cycles. And Blender utilizes normals.

I got a 'orrible feeling your expecting way too much from a "normal" map, while they are good for anyone making a game or animations for a one shot render don't bother ~ bump is fine and a lot easier to mess with in a paint proggy

even if I really wanted to use a normal map in blender I'd bake it in blender ........its a lot easier then you might think (is even a button called bake from multires lol )

there is no "one size fits all" answer, saving a second or so per frame on a 20,000 frame render would be awesome but means nothing on a one off 20 min render NOT trying to put you off cycles (I love it) but have a play with a normal map you like and its bump map I think you wont see much diff a lot of the time

have fun  

I am with heddheld on this one.

Bump and displacement maps are rather simple grey scale maps and a lot more end user friendly as normal maps.
Just open in any paint proggy, and adapt / adjust when required.

Hi !

I think normal maps dont have any utility if you have a good bump maps, but, 98% of bump maps in the market are crappy, they are just the invert of greyscale. In this case normal maps are the solution.

The one case I know where normals can do what bump cannot is the simulation of fibers that are laying in parallel, locally, but not generally the same over the whole surface. See the velvet thread nearby.

The reason this is interesting with normals is that to make a bump map that says here's a patch pointing left and here's another patch pointing right will require creating the equivalent of a gigantic mountain or valley, and this won't match with all the other mountains and valleys. A "height" interpretation of fibers laying flat in various directions doesn't come out right. Normal maps more directly produce arbitrary normals, which is what is needed for crushed velvet.

I do have a novice-like question here.  In reference to displacement and bump maps.  Is the only true difference that one uses a more varied altitude than the other and that is why the maps are different in many cases?

There is no difference between a bump map and a displacement map, in terms of math.

However - people who know they're using bump only for bump (i.e. wrinkles and fine-grained texture, not to move the mesh) may remove some low-frequency height information, knowing that it will not help the cause, and that more bits devoted to tiny deviations would be better.

This is only motivated by 8-bit image limitations. Other image formats (like 16 bits) provide enough range to make such an optimization more effort than it's worth.

I'm referring here to overall height vs. local height variations. If, for example, you're modeling an entire face as a displacement of a spheroid, you need to deal with the entire protrusion of the nose (peak) vs.  the deepest part of the eye (valley). Since 8 bits only has 255 steps in it, total, you're going to have pretty big steps and the fine-grained details (like wrinkles on the lips) will be underrepresented - they will look like stacked pancakes.

Here's an example of a displacement of a face I made long ago. On the left, the displacement has about 250 steps - so few that you can clearly see the terraces.

On the right around 750 steps.

Using math node trickery, I managed to invent a scheme with 8-bit images that produced an effective resolution of 13 bits. It was an interesting mathematical puzzle - but not something your average artist is going to take advantage of.

The thread is here

Depth Map - Thread at RuntimeDNA from 2007

Puzzles like this are the reason I use Poser. I have no interest in art - I just like doing stuff that other people think there is no way in hell to do. Along the way, I accidentally learned some useful stuff, so I share that when the forum doesn't make me insane.