$bumpmap

A material's albedo (left) compared to its bump map.

The above material in-game.

The $bumpmap VMT parameter specifies a texture that will provide three-dimensional lighting information for a material. The texture is a bump map, but the process it is used for is called normal mapping; the two terms are often used interchangeably, however.

Warning:$bumpmap will disable prop_static's per-vertex lighting. Not enough data is stored in the vertices for normal mapping, so the engine has no choice but to fall back.

Bug:Some users have reported that HLMV does not display $bumpmaps, even though the engine itself does. This may be related to a model having multiple materials.  [todo tested in ?]

Note:When $bumpmap is used with the Water shader, the texture should be a du/dv map.

Basic syntax

$bumpmap <texture>

LightmappedGeneric
{
	$basetexture	brick/brickwall021a
	$surfaceprop	brick
	$bumpmap	brick/brickwall021a_normal
}

Additional parameters

$bumptransform <matrix>

Transforms the bump map texture. Requires DirectX 9 or above.

The default position is center .5 .5 scale 1 1 rotate 0 translate 0 0.

1. center defines the point of rotation. Only useful if rotate is being used.
2. scale fits the texture into the material the given number of times. 2 1 is a 50% scale in the horizontal X axis while the vertical Y axis is still at original scale.
3. rotate rotates the texture counter-clockwise in degrees. Accepts any number, including negatives.
4. translate shifts the texture by the given numbers. .5 will shift it half-way. 1 will shift it once completely over, which is the same as not moving it at all.

Note:All values must be included!

Bug:Scaling the texture may cause odd issues where the Texture Lock tool in Hammer will not actually lock the texture in place.  [todo tested in ?]

Bug:Rotating textures applied on brushes will rotate around the map origin (confirm: Orangebox engine only?). A fix for this is to change the center position in the VMT to the brush's origin.  [todo tested in ?]

$ssbump

Flags the bump map texture as being self-shadowing. Click for more details.

$bumpscale <float>

Scales the bump map by the given value in DirectX 8.

$bumpframe <integer>

The frame to start an animated bump map on.

$nodiffusebumplighting <bool>

Stops the bump map affecting the lighting of the material's albedo, which help combat overdraw. Does not affect the specular map.

$forcebump <bool>

Forces DirectX 8 cards to render the bump map. They normally don't for performance reasons.

$bumpoffset <?>

Confirm:DX8 version of center?

$bumpmap2 <texture>

$bumpframe2 <integer>

Used by the WorldVertexTransition shader in blend materials that display two textures. DirectX 9 required.

Console commands

mat_fastnobump <bool>

Quickly enables/disabled normal mapping.

mat_normalmaps <bool>

Displays the bump map texture of all materials that have one in place of their albedo.

(Yes, these two commands have bump and normal the wrong way around!)

See also

• Bump map, for technical details and a guide to creation.