Adding a bump map is an easy but yet effective way to add more realism to a scene. I´m not gonna try to explain how it works but I guess one can say that a bump map is like a “raised texture” that simulates a “bumpy surface” rather than a flat and smooth surface. The bump map is a “grayscale” image where the lighter areas are “raised” from the darker areas. (go here if you want to read up on bump mapping).

In this video i will show how easy it is to create you own bump map and use it in TopSolid 7.

As a base i´m using a photo of my bathroom floor taken with a mobile phone .

In short here are the steps shown in the video:

• First you need a picture to work with, either take your own or use the one included in the package available here.
• Open it in you favourite image editor.
• Crop the image to a size you see fit.
• Save it.
• Now invert the colours and maybe adjust brightness and contrast.
• Save this image aswell.
• In TopSolid 7 create two textures, on as a “normal” texture and the other one as a bump texure.
• Create a new material, add the textures, adjust the values as you like and set the bump value. The amount of bump needed might differ from different textures so try some different values until you get what you want.
• Create a surface or whatever to apply the material to. Drag´n drop the material onto your surface/part.
• Activate realistic render and your done!
• Create a render if you like.
• Pretty easy. Check out the process in the video below. Tha package containing all the files needed is available in the download area.

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