Bump mapping is no secret but that's not what I'm talking about. It looks like the "special map" has some kind of wanted or unwanted dither in it, making the whole thing look more highres than the nm + it's simpler to sharpen the black n white bump map compared to the nm. And this is totally on topic bc I guess that's…
just to clarify the resolution thing. U can change the pixel blending to an extend where you end up with an more pixelated result. But you get sharper lines making you think the texture is more highres. Normalmaps are usually blend "physically correct" what is good but you need more then 9 pixel to define a sharp bump…
People in this thread have said things along the lines of "this isnt really a good idea, big waste of time.". Its important to know that this is not only not a good idea, its a very very bad idea. If you go through the trouble of modeling high res geometry you better be baking it directly to a normal map. Rendered normal…
The problem is, these forums are filled with people who work with surface-defining shaders and maps all day long as a living, and many of them know their way around it quite well. There's also the people who would overlay a normalmap unto itself since they heard it was a good trick to enhance the looks of it!, that kind of…
This is sort of a silly thread, and there are a lot of misconceptions here. A bump map that is converted to a normal, has the exact same limitations as a normal. One can not be "sharper" than the other, its impossible, its limited the the bounds of the pixels contained in the image. If you want more sharpness in your…