SSbump Generator Created 15 years ago2009-02-13 04:55:50 UTC by the_best_flash

A Self shadowed Normal Map generation program that I wrote. It converts height and normal maps into the new Self-shadowed normal map format.

I like to make custom textures, and a while ago I heard about the SSbump. I looked around for information on making ssbumps, but found very little. So, I wrote a program called SSbump Generator to batch generate them.

A download link and more information can be found here.

SSbump generator is a free program that can be run from the command line or with specially formatted txt configuration files. The purpose of this program is to generate Self-Shadowed Bump Maps for VALVe's Source game engine. The program can either generate non-shadowed ssbump maps or embed directional ambient occlusion into the image.

The image on the top was generated by my program. The image on the bottom is from a paper written by VALVe that discussed SSbump maps.This is a screen shot of one of the ssbumps that I made. (Click for a larger picture)

Theres a normal map plugin for PhotoShop and VTFEdit has this built in as well.

Still looking good.

Normal maps and SSbumps are two different things, Urb, and before this tool, there wasn't a way to generate SSbumps.

(I think - I really know nothing about this, I'm just repeating what I've heard.)

Then I apologize. I'm a tool.

Normal maps suck ass. And so does SSbumps.

Why?

That's why!
Even with SSBumps i get the goddamn petal shape thing.

Stupid shit!

Self-Shadowed Bump Maps are slightly different than normal maps. They render slightly faster, and can cast shadows on themselves.

There has been another major update to the tool. (The height map smoothing has a really nice effect when set to around 3 or 4.)

Thanks to MrTwoVideoCards from interlopers.net for the contrast, smoothing, non-normal map generation, and minimum/maximum value ideas.

1. Fixed bugs.
2. Optimized more.
3. Now it has an option to run in multi-threaded mode for multi-processor computers
4. Added a contrast option. 1 for increasing the contrast of the height map and another for increasing the contrast of the final image.
5. Added a smoothing option. 1 for smoothing the height map and another for smoothing the final image.
6. Added an option for generating ssbumps without the normal map. Either use the command flag or input a 24 bit image.
7. Added an option to specify the minimum and maximum color values when calculating ambient occlusion.

The update can be found here, and more information on usage will be available at my website.

Enjoy.

Been using this for a short while now, it's great. Self-shadowed bump mapping is such a simple thing in the grander scheme of graphics, but it makes a huge difference with texturing. Really have to thank you for this program, it's the simplest one I've found for creating them, but it's also got all the right options for tweaking the crap out of them.

Program rocks.

Thanks.

The program has gone through several versions since it was first created. I'm always open to suggestions for more options. The people over at interlopers.net have been very helpful during the development of this program.

I have recently updated the program. More information can be found at my website.

The main update is that I added a GUI. Below is a picture.

Looks absolutely awesome, great work! :]

Yours needs oversampling and maybe some surface smoothing by a pixel threshold.

I wonder if these will work in Max...

Cool, I'll have to check this out for my texture art...I usually use CrazyBump to do all my normal mapping but I'll have to play around with some self-shadowed normal maps...

Yours needs oversampling and maybe some surface smoothing by a pixel threshold.

I'll have to look into that. Do you know of anywhere that I can find more information on the methods of calculating those?

Woah, wait a minute, shouldn't this be in source section?