Hey! A new tool called AwesomeBump is out now! Version 1.0 was released on January 30th, and since then there have been 3 subsequent releases. AwesomeBump is a lot like CrazyBump. Some BIG differences are that it’s free, open-source, AND cross-platform. Windows, Mac, and Linux. You load up an image, and it creates Normal, Specular, Height, and Occlusion maps for you. You can remove stretching from an image, remove shading from it, and there are SO many options for tweaking the maps! That’s not all - if you don’t like any of the models included with AB, you can load in your own! You can seriously test the texture maps ON YOUR OWN MODEL. It seems to good to be true, and it sort of is. “WHAT?! SORT OF?! WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!”, you scream in a fit of rage. You need OpenGL 4.0 or greater to run the tool. The reason for this is because 99% of the computing is done on the GPU. If you can utilize this tool, it runs BLAZING fast. But don’t take my word for it! DOWNLOAD IT HERE: http://awesomebump.besaba.com Get it, and make some AWESOME renders!
Same boat as NinthJake – OpenGL isn’t high enough in Linux using Open Source Radeon drivers. I’ll have to remember to give it a go next time I boot into Windows though.
The creator has a lot of tutorials on the website: http://awesomebump.besaba.com/tutorials I assume you really want to know how to generate the maps. This is a little confusing at first, but you get used to it really quick. Click on the ‘Diffuse’ tab, and drag your image into there. At the bottom (make sure the Diffuse tab is active) click on the checkbox labeled “Basemap to others” and then click the button that says Convert N to H. From there you can tweak the settings.