Postby Tony » December 6th, 2011, 10:52 pm
A diffuse map is merely just a color image.
Like say a photo, or a created, artist's picture of something.
In the case of those philpk images, it is the picture that you see when you look at the face of whatever you've applied the texture onto.
Other maps can be a normal map, which generally will give you the textured look, the bumpiness rendered onto a face.
A displacement map, which is a greyscale used to generate the normal map, and then a specular map, which is used to generate the reflection look.
Ambiance maps, and etc.
Maybe you're mixing up a displacement map with a diffusion map. Diffusion maps really are just a color layer, a photo, or like in MapZone2 it is a gradient scale.
The way I make most of mine so far is, I produce an image, a graphic rendition, a picture of what I want the face of my cube to look like.
From that, I generate a displacement map which is required to make a true normal. Generate the normal. And then a flat specular plane to reflect the light for shiny.
That's it. There are other methods, but this is the way I am doing most of these right now.
For load efficiency, whenever it is possible, I will use a method of /vcolor over a normal and a texture z layer. If I am able to /vrotate./vscale,and /vcolor the same set of images to do multiple purposes it will alleviate weight by reusing the same images for lots of duties. That is a good goal to have in mind. The newer engines are doing a lot with rendering on the fly now with computational generation rather than 47 thousand unique individual texture images.
Again though, sometimes the CPU/GPU/RAM usage isn't any more efficient than loading up images into memory... some stuff is 6 of one, half dozen of another by the time it is actually all said and done.
Like UDK... they talk all about making good use of multiple processors and how efficient their engine is and blah blah... all about next generation rendering, blah blah blah... and yet... for all of that efficiency... the games are heavy as heck and require a massive cutting edge gaming rig to run right.
That'll be wonderful when we're all playing on 128-core processors and running 32 terabytes of RAM with a 12 terabyte GPU...
...but for most folks... that day isn't coming soon.
I'm all for forward thinking and pushing the envelope of technology... but I am also all about today and right now and practical application in the real and present world. Yeah, I wanna fly a spaceship to Mars, but until then I need to keep good tires on my Nissan ZX car, m'k.
</rant>
<smile>
Mind Reading Mastered
Canonize Juan Valdez and his Burro
