confused with the whole normal mapps.

[EricChadwick]

Normal mapping creates the illusion of geometry by changing the way light reflects off a surface. It is a bump mapping technique.

Displacement mapping creates actual geometry, for very accurate reflection of light. The best displacement mapping systems create the geometry at render time only, creating a huge number of very tiny polygons, at the sub-pixel level (polygons are smaller than one rendered pixel).

Displacement maps are height maps, generally with black creating the lowest elevation, and white making the highest.

These maps can also be used for traditional bump mapping, but bump mapping doesn't create extra polygons. So the silhouette of the model remains the same. Displacement mapping alters the silhouette of the model. Shadows are also more accurate.

Normal maps are a special kind of bump map. They don't record height info, they just record differences in slope... each pixel records a direction the surface will point in. This controls how bright the surface will be at that pixel.

Anyhow, that's a start. Questions? I've been studying normal mapping for a while, I might be able to help.

[Barbas]

Record differences in slope? What does this mean?

[EricChadwick]

This tutorial might help.
http://members.shaw.ca/jimht03/normal.html

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