
The surface in Figure 19-1 is exactly one polygon (or two tri-
angles). This surface is the most simple square surface you
could render in a real-time renderer. In the real-time render-
ing world, the more polygons on an object, the longer it takes
to render that object. As the polycount rises, the frames per
second, or scene renders per second, drop until you are practi-
cally looking at a slide show. However, by using just a simple
256 x 256 pixel texture we can generate a look that seems
nearly identical to the high-poly, sub-d model and avoid this
low frame rate altogether.
A Brief Overview of Creating Normal Maps
Creating a normal map these days is ...