they are blueish maps the create hights in the render of the charecter
to save on mesh. Search google for better example.
But can blender create and render them ?
I should know this, but oh well. ^v^
no, neither
it may be able to do some hack-method to generate them (with python), but you wouldn’t be able to use them in blender
this has been asked before, with a link to an ATI program that did it, or was a demo (I personally never looked at it)
drat . I’m shocked. Maybe in the next game blender release 
Don’t be shocked. Normal mapping is a very new technology and is only just starting to be used games not even out yet. Many 3D packages don’t render normal mapping without some kind of plugin. For now I think there are many more important things that the Blender developers have to work on.
Here is a link to a freeware normal map generating program. It should integrate well with Blender.
http://www.soclab.bth.se/practices/orb.html
Make sure to post your results!
TorQ
I can think of a way to create them, but not use them from within blender.
http://mysite.reblended.com/alien-xmp/Tutorials/NormalMap/NormalMap.html
how did you unwrap monkey like that ?
I cheated of course. 
It is not unwrapped. I was getting rendering errors where the normals start facing away from the camera, so I deleted the back half of the head, and extruded the perimeter out to a rectangle.
It could be done via a texture plugin - the bumpmap part of the texture plugins return is a normal offset, not a height map.
The only problem is that the plugin interface doesn’t let you type in strings or use load image, so there’s no way to tell the plugin what image to load 
I’m sure someone can find a workaround though 
I’m going to go ask for help on the plugins board [>]
I must be missing something here… Is this not what the “Nor” button and a grayscale image (UVmapped, probably) can be used for?
Yes, it is basically the same as a greyscale with “Nor”. Blender generates a Normal map from the heightmap, which from what I gather loses detail. It’s also an extra step; a realtime engine could use the normal map directly.
Ah! Thank you for the link; it demonstrated very clearly the difference between a normal map and Blender’s built-in bump mapping.
-Iain
What programs use normal maps, anyway? I noticed that Wilbur (freeware terrain generation program) can generate normal and light maps, but I don’t understand how to use either one of them.
EDIT: After checking I discovered I was wrong about the normal maps, but if anyone knows a way to use light maps I’m interested in hearing them.