Real-Time 3D Rendering with DirectX® and HLSL: A Practical Guide to Graphics Programming

Chapter 9. Normal Mapping and Displacement Mapping

In this chapter, you discover techniques for adding detail to your scenes without necessarily increasing the poly count of your objects. With normal mapping, you create “fake” geometry for simulating light interaction. And with displacement mapping, you create bumps and recesses by actually moving vertices according to texture data.

Normal Mapping

In previous chapters, you learned about specular maps, environment maps, and transparency maps—textures that provide additional information to your shaders. Specular maps limit the specular highlight, environment maps contribute colors for reflective surfaces, and transparency maps control alpha blending in the output-merger stage. This information ...