Very Large Detail – This setting operates slightly differently than the rest of the detail sliders. Because of their blurring effects when carving out areas of contrast, they are seldom used without the sharpness aid from either the Shape Recognition or Fine Detail settings. This allows the normal to bevel into the areas where the values change, enhancing their shape. Medium & Large Detail – These settings work in a similar fashion to fine detail with one exception: the edges where the color value changes are blurred to different degrees. It also serves an a good way to increase the sharpness when using the medium and large detail settings. Because it does not affect the areas where there is a constant value, it makes for a great stand alone setting for small detail textures like paint buildup or wall stucco. It should not be used alone, but rather in tandem with other detail settings.įine Detail – This setting adds greater contrast to areas where the shade changes from one value to another. Its one of the only settings that responds to the solid values of the image, pushing out whiter areas and recessing darker ones. As seen in our test map, it adds additional information to objects that have more white, making our square shapes more pronounced. Shape Recognition – This setting attempts to add directional lighting information, derived from the constant value areas of the texture. This is mostly used as an after thought once the detail settings have been used to produce an overall output to the texture. It will attempting to remove some of the noise and smoothing out the areas where there is a lot of close shade variation. Noise Removal – This is a stepped setting with 3 levels that will selectively blur the normal map. It can add a lot of noise to a normal map, but it can be useful for enhancing textures that have a lot of natural chaos in them such as fabrics or canvas. Sharpen – Very self-explanatory, this will sharpen the image, producing a grainier looking effect. Inverting this number inverts the texture its-self in case you chose the wrong starting image before this step. The higher the value, the more the others settings will impact the final result. Intensity – This serves as a multiplier for the end result. My test texture has very little information in it, allowing us to see how the settings are applied. As such, the more contrast information you have in your image, the more Crazybump can use it to build details into the normal map. After importing this texture, it becomes obvious that Crazybump responds to contrast between the different shades as opposed to the value as a whole.
Using a test texture of different grayscale values, we can see the effects the settings are having on the output of the texture.