3D Game Textures: Create Professional Game Art Using Photoshop

Chapter 9. Normal Maps and Multi-Pass Shaders

Introduction

This chapter focuses on normal mapping, specifically on creating normal maps in Photoshop, with a look at creating them using a 3D program, and creating the supporting maps for a typical environment. I will explain how 3D applications are used to do this, but we won’t be doing this in this book.

In order to understand what a normal map is, first we will look at what a normal is and how lighting in games generally works. In short, a normal map creates an illusion of depth by recalculating the highlights and shadows on a low polygon surface using the information from a high-polygon model—and ...