normalmapping
 

anyone know of a way to do normalmapping in maya? i'm looking to try out modding the far cry demo, which utilizes normalmaps, but i don't know how to go about making normalmaps. actually i know next to nothing about normalmaps so really any information at all about them would be cool... how to create them, what they are (are they just variations of textures? if so, is it done in photoshop and not maya?), anything.

thanks!

Normalmapping is a form of bumpmapping, the main one actually.
They're textures that contain normals encoded as pixels that are mapped like regular textures that add detail without extra geometry.

Create a grey scale image with RGB 128, 128, 128 and in Photoshop you can lighten or darken areas you want to appear as ridges or valleys. Then stick the image in the bumpmapping channel of your material.

If the normalmaps in Far Cry you're talking about are a blue color that means they're encoded for the graphics card. If you need need these type of maps, nVidia has a free tool that generates these maps from greyscale images.

Yes, you can download nvidia's cgfx plugins for maya and photoshop. The photoshop plugin does a good job of making normal maps from textures and the cgfx plugin lets you see the normal map effect in Maya.

thanks for the info guys, that's pretty much exactly what i was looking for.