Which kind of map should I use?

[m4gnus]

A Bumpmap and a normalmap is essentially the same. You use them to approximate small bumps on the surface. The problem is you won't see a change of the silhouette or one bump occluding another(that's why you use them only for small details). If you have some time spare you shold instead use displacement maps.
When you apply a displacement map the renderer will tesselate your mesh until one polygon is almost pixelsize and displace the newly created vertices according to your displacement map. This results in perfect silhouettes and occlusion(and shadows,and ambient occlusion,etc)

regards,
m4gnus

[Jeroen]

Thank you, I can understand that, it makes sense

But know I'm wondering, what is the big difference between a "Normal map" and a "Bump map". Why are normal maps so important for the game industry and the bump maps less.

[GArriola83]

normal maps and bump maps are similar in many ways but different from one another. for a bump map, positive and negative information is used to depict bumps on the texture; thats why people have black and white textures for bump maps. but for normal maps, its just not positive and negative information. its actually coordinate information transferred over to pixels from the surface normals of the model. then the XYZ information is converted to an RGB color map. not only does normal mapping give more detail in textures but also accurately translates normal surface information in a low poly model, giving it roundness, depth, accurate highlight/shadow information and so forth. so in a way a normal map is kinda like a bump map, but on steroids.

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