Aegrus Posted December 22, 2011 Share Posted December 22, 2011 I'm not sure if this should be here or in the mod discussion forum. . . I've seen a lot of good bump map mods recently. Some are a little too extreme, but they overall make the game look a ton better, in my opinion. Also, there's barely any framerate drop associated with them. Why don't game developers use more bumpmapping? Is there some hidden weakness that I don't know about? I can't think of any games where at least a little more bumpmapping wouldn't be a huge improvement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PR4Y Posted December 22, 2011 Share Posted December 22, 2011 One word will solve this thread and end the need for further discussion.... What is that word???? ...... CONSOLES. Honestly though... This isn't a PC Master Gaming Race rant... it's the truth. The XBOX360 / PS3 can't handle the kind of graphics rendering that is required to use extensive bumping in sandbox games, so it simply isn't included. Had Skyrim been a proper PC -> Console port rather then vica versa, we might of seen a bit more work done on this... instead, PC gamers got the short end of this stick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
throttlekitty Posted December 22, 2011 Share Posted December 22, 2011 Practically every object in the game has normal maps associated with them. The cost of using them is already covered in their shader system. The only real weakness is using too many large textures in a scene and going over a target memory limit in any given, but that's not restricted to bump. Without all the bravado, consoles and lower-end PCs are a consideration when designing games. As far as a more pronounced effect? That's an artistic decision. Some designers go for very sharp look, often going into the deep end of ZOMG NORMAL MAPPING LOOKIT LOOKIT, some prefer a softer look and make you wonder why they used it at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShadowscaleB1980 Posted December 22, 2011 Share Posted December 22, 2011 (edited) bump mapping is like honey, I like honey but I certainly wouldn't want to drink a glass of it. in the late 90's there was a video card called the Matrox G400 and it was the first card ever produced that was capable of doing full environment bump mapping- the problem was it would use bump mapping on everything,you could turn it off but there was no in-between setting. And as a result there were some parts in games that when played on a computer with a G400 in it the game ended up looking absolutely terrible because of the overused bump mapping. Edited December 22, 2011 by shadow_scale9180 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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