OpenGl 1.4?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi folks,

I'm pretty stupid so I need your help.

Only OpenGl 1.4 and higher supports normal mapping? right? or wrong?

And as saw in front page Irrlicht supports only 1.2

in future, is Niko planing to upgrade to it? or is complicated or currently impossible to do?

coz I really need bump mapping for my stupid project and it should run on Linux.

Sorry if this is silly questions, but I really need an answer,

Thanks

[hybrid]

Two things. First, do you need bump mapping (which is already supported) or normal mapping? And second, support for a specific OpenGL version is meant as definitely using features only available since that version. Most (at least Linux) users do use OpenGL 1.4 as this is determined by the available OpenGL library during compilation or execution.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for quick reply.

bump mapping and normal mapping is the same thing in my head.
(or you did mean saying "bump mapping" as paralax mapping (height map, etc) in that case I need normal mapping)

(which is already supported)

I tried and it worked only in DX, so I kinda don't understand what you meant.

Thanks

[hybrid]

I'm not that deep into 3D things, but googling for it made me learn that normal mapping is superior to bump mapping. Bump mapping just stores height information for the texture in another grey bitmap. Normal mapping encodes complete normal vectors for all textures in another color bitmap. Parallax mapping uses texture displacement based on angle of view which is apparently also different (which I found with wikipedia )
And bump mapping (as described above) works with OpenGL as well, I've seen it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, term "bump map" originaly appeared in 3d rendering packages(like 3d studio)
and refered to just grey bitmap with no normal calculations(as it is now too).

with DX9 and OGL1.4 in real-time 3d games appeared normal maps(which was called incorrectly sometimes as "bump map"(I think I did that in first post too))

Paralax is different story I think.

but anyway my hardware doesnt allow me to use paralax.

So any ideas how can use normal maps in Irrlicht with OpenGL?

Thanks

[AndyCR]

So any ideas how can use normal maps in Irrlicht with OpenGL?

Simply use them in opengl the same way you would use them in directx. On my machine, it works perfectly that way. Perhaps your hardware does not support it in opengl?

(Yes, normal mapping is considered the same thing as "bump mapping", you may have confused it with "embm", environment bump mapping, which uses a greyscale map to define height. the "proper" term for normal mapping is dot3 bump mapping, but few people use it.)

Yay, first post!

[Guest]

what does doom 3 use?

[Quall]

Normal maps. You can tell by looking at the images. normal maps are usually kind of a spectra

[hybrid]

(Yes, normal mapping is considered the same thing as "bump mapping", you may have confused it with "embm", environment bump mapping, which uses a greyscale map to define height. the "proper" term for normal mapping is dot3 bump mapping, but few people use it.)

Hmm, should've looked up the sources or API. It's called NormalMapRenderer, so the name says all
But it uses some shader programs such that it does not depend on OpenGL features, but on the shader your card supports. If not supported plain materials are drawn.

[Guest]

(Yes, normal mapping is considered the same thing as "bump mapping", you may have confused it with "embm", environment bump mapping, which uses a greyscale map to define height. the "proper" term for normal mapping is dot3 bump mapping, but few people use it.)

Hmm, should've looked up the sources or API. It's called NormalMapRenderer, so the name says all
But it uses some shader programs such that it does not depend on OpenGL features, but on the shader your card supports. If not supported plain materials are drawn.

exactly. whats odd is that my laptop (intel extreme graphics 2 for mobile) supports normal mapping, yet it does not work with it in irrlicht.

i heard the pistol weapon in d3 is normal mapped, and the actual rendered model is only 100 some polys... amazing things can be done with normal/parallax mapping if you have alot of experience with them...

[AndyCR]

SO sorry about that tripple post, got impatient and clicked post 3 times because it was just previewing when i clicked submit, and forgot to log in so i cant delete them...

sorry...

[Anonymous Coward]

On my machine, it works perfectly that way.

So if you run "PerPixelLighting.exe" from examples, and chose OpenGL
you can see normal maps?

Perhaps your hardware does not support it in opengl?

Well I think it does, I have two comps, one with GeForce2 MX, and
other with GeForce3 Ti 200 card.And even using GeForce2 MX when I try test it
with "OpenGL Extensions Viewer" I do see normal maps.

heres view:


It says it using renderer: OpenGL 1.5
I'm kinda stupid and I don't understand how it can use it if Irrlicht doesnt support it. I'm actually good in graphics not programing so maybe I misunderstand something in that OpenGL thing.

[AndyCR]

http://img27.imageshack.us/my.php?image=itworked5au.jpg

correct. thats on my desktop; on my laptop, i get the same thing you do, my card supports normal mappinbg, but it does not work with irrlicht. perhaps its because it doesnt support shaders; gf2's and 3's are pretty old, no offense meant.

EDIT: sorry, was using ogl 1.2 there, but it works with 1.5 too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats mean GL 1.2 does have normal maps.
but its good coz I can use and see normal maps in DX
knowing that they will appear in GL too on other hardwares.

[Guest]

internally bump maps get converted to normal maps so it's the same! (there also are other simpler kinds of bump mapping though.)

the difference is that you usually can't paint a height map with surface information of the same quality as you can achieve with baking normal maps from high poly meshes.