Best options for creating normals maps and / or displacement maps?

Support Materials and Textures
1

Can I create normals maps or displacement maps using any of the following:

  1. Blender itself? I have the latest version, and prefer to use Cycles Render

  2. Gimp. I have the latest version, and I have heard about InsaneBump, but I have not been able to install the plugin or
    even find it online.

  3. Photoshop. But I only have version CS5, and I can’t upgrade because that’s on my old mac system which won’t support
    anything newer.

Any comments are welcome.

2
  1. Blender itself? I have the latest version, and prefer to use Cycles Render
    Yes. Render / Bake panel
3

Yes, everything you’ve listed can generate and manipulate normal maps. They can, and probably should be, combined as well. It’s rare that a single tool can complete the entire job.

  1. Blender itself? I have the latest version, and prefer to use Cycles Render

Blender is a competent normal map generation tool. There are many interesting node setups and strategies for generating excellent maps and combining them. Just searching BA will yield informative existing discussions on the topic. Youtube is also awash in comprehensive tutorials on using Blender to create normal maps.

  1. Gimp. I have the latest version, and I have heard about InsaneBump, but I have not been able to install the plugin or
    even find it online.

I don’t use Gimp, so I really have no experience generating normals with it, but a quick google search turned these up [1] [2]

  1. Photoshop. But I only have version CS5, and I can’t upgrade because that’s on my old mac system which won’t support
    anything newer.

Here’s the Nvidia filter for photoshop. It is supported by CS5. There are also PS actions which combine normal maps as well. Google is your friend if you’re looking for those.

Follow tutorials and keep asking more questions. Good luck!

4

I have installed the Photoshop plug-in for NVidia Tools. I have created some normals maps. But I am doing something wrong in my node setup, because I don’t see any difference when I mute/unmute the normals map Texture coordinate node. How should the nodes be set up? I have both the original image texture and the normals map that was created from it.

5

This should be all you need to get started. Follow Richard’s post and Greg’s below.

6

OKk so I did this and got a B&W render of my plane, with the basketweave look. However the color if the texture image isn’t on the plane, only the B&W. Is there another node and/or node connection I need to show color and to somehow displace the mesh?