Creation of bump-mapping maps

[Peter Ryskin]

I can't say for others, but - a bumpmap is best seen as a heightmap thats represented by shades of grey. I find that for images that contains large (overlapping) surfaces, converting it to a vector image and then coloring the vector objects working alternately top/bottom, with a shadow/light layer of the source image on top where the large surface seperations have been removed, works the best for me. Its not perfect, but its an approximation.

If its original work, and you've been working with seperate diffuse & effects layers, it should be no sweat to create "perfect" bump-maps, by coloring the diffuse layers in greys according to elevation and disabling effect layers.

Most source images though have a lot of lighting information, and in most cases thats whats playing havoc with the standard "convert to greyscale" quickie method. Depending on your application you may or may not have filters and tools available to lessen/remove the shading information, and create topology maps of the image, which are far more suited to the task than most other things - imo.

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