Can normal maps be used in Panda?

General Discussion
1

I’m interested in being able to quickly preview a model with normal maps applied. Is this possible yet?

I apologise if this is in the documentation–I haven’t had time to go through it yet, and have to quickly decide on some way to preview my normal maps before I commit to learning a package. But the python scripting is a big plus.

Also, please register another vote for OS X support!

Thanks,
Ken

2

I’ll check this forum for the answer to my previous question, but in case you want to email me a response also (which would be appreciated), my email is kenneth.m.mcdonaldATgmail.com.

Thanks,
Ken

3

Sorry, normal maps–that is, texture maps that perturb the lighting normal–are not yet supported by Panda, although we’ll actually be adding that feature very soon.

Of course, you can always enable features like this yourself by writing a Cg shader to do it, or implementing the appropriate OpenGL (or DirectX) calls in a custom render callback. But soon enough you won’t have to.

David

4

Speaking of Cg shaders - to do a Cg shader for bump-mapping, you would need a tangent and a binormal. Can Panda provide these vectors as inputs to the Cg shader?

5

Ahh, you caught me bluffing!

No, Panda doesn’t actually have a place to store these, so you would have trouble implementing bump mapping with a Cg shader unless you also write your own geometry calls.

At the moment, I am in the process of redesigning Panda’s internal Geom structure, to allow for storage of more general vertex data, including such things as tangents and binormals. The redesign should also improve frame rate when lots of vertices are involved, especially on a high-end card.

David