This demo shows a new feature about the texture generation engine implemented in my Unrelated Framework. The normalmap used by bump mapping is calculated on the base of an heightmap generated with two different methods: Low Static Range and High Static Range. The enviroment bump mapping shows the difference in quality between the two ranges.
The first range uses only 8 bits per pixel that is too low to represent a continuous surface like the sphere generated in this example and as result we can see many rings on the surface during the light effect. On the contrary, an high range of 16 bits per pixel is perfect to have a light effect on a continuous surface infact we don't have any kind of imperfection. I could use the famous High Dynamic Range to generate the height map, but in my opinion it could be too expensive for the use of memory and the lack of speed (32 bits floating point per pixel, or 16 bits half-float has continuous conversions because cpu doesn't support it).
©2009 Gianpaolo Ingegneri