Render Maps Menu

The Render Maps menu (Filter > Render Maps > ...) allows to render special texture maps that can be used to create photorealistic materials in 3D packages or game engines. Examples of these maps are the diffuse map which defines the surface color, the bump map which describes the surface elevation, and the normal map which encodes surface normal vectors used for real-time lighting. The availability of these maps in the menu depends on the filter type – Simple filter or Surface (see Result for details). Since Simple filters are not calculated as 3D surfaces and don't use Lighting, they don't produce diffuse, bump, normal, specular strength and specular exponent maps – these maps are available for Surface filters only.

All maps in the Render Maps menu are available in the Professional edition of Filter Forge only, except for the alpha map which is available in all editions. See Filter Forge Editions for more information.

For Simple filters (those with no Lighting tab), only the Alpha map is available:

For Surface filters (those that have the Lighting tab), all maps are available:

If the resulting map is solid-colored, the map caption in the preview also shows its grayscale or RGB values:

Off turns the map rendering off. This menu item is selected by default.

Diffuse Map renders a color map that represents the surface color. This map is generated by the Surface Color subtree of the Result component. If nothing is connected to the Surface Color input or it is controlled by a control component, the resulting map is filled with a solid color whose R, G and B values are displayed in the map caption.

Bump Map renders a grayscale map that represents the surface height. This map is generated by the Height subtree of the Result component. Unlike the normal map (described below), the bump map is not affected by the Surface Height parameter on the Lighting tab.

Normal Map renders a color map whose R, G and B channels encode surface normal vectors for each pixel. This map is generated based on the Height subtree of the Result component and is affected by the Surface Height parameter on the Lighting tab. Filter Forge can generate both DirectX-style and OpenGL-style normal maps, which can be configured in Rendering Options.

Specular Strength Map renders a grayscale map that represents the amount of specular reflection. This map is generated by the Reflectivity subtree of the Result component. If nothing is connected to the Reflectivity input or it is controlled by a control component, the resulting map is filled with a solid color whose grayscale value is displayed in the map caption.

Specular Exponent Map renders a grayscale map that encodes the Phong specular exponent for each pixel. This map is generated by the Reflection Blur subtree of the Result component. If nothing is connected to the Reflection Blur input or it is controlled by a control component, the resulting map is filled with a solid color whose grayscale value is displayed in the map caption. For details on how the grayscale values of this map can be converted into Phong specular exponents, refer to the help section for the Reflection Blur input of the Result component.

Metallic Map renders a grayscale map that represents the metallic and dielectric areas of the surface. This map is generated by the Metallic subtree of the Result component. If nothing is connected to the Metallic input or it is controlled by a control component, the resulting map is filled with a solid color whose grayscale value is displayed in the map caption. For more information, refer to the help section for the Metallic input of the Result component.

Ambient Occlusion Map renders a grayscale map that represents the amount of ambient occlusion. This map is generated based on the Height subtree of the Result component. When rendering this map, the renderer uses the current occlusion quality settings specified in the Ambience section of the Lighting tab (when Shadowing is set to None, the default quality settings are used.)

Reflective Occlusion Map renders a grayscale map that represents the amount of reflective occlusion. This map is generated based on the Height subtree of the Result component. When rendering this map, the renderer uses the current occlusion quality settings specified in the Ambience section of the Lighting tab (when Shadowing is set to None, the default quality settings are used.)

Alpha Map renders a grayscale map that represents the transparency, or the alpha channel, of each pixel. For Simple filters, this map is generated using the alpha channel of the Source subtree of the Result component. For Surface filters, this map is generated using the alpha channel of the Surface Color subtree of the Result component. If nothing is connected to these inputs or they are controlled by control components, the resulting map is filled with a solid color whose grayscale value is displayed in the map caption.