Topic: Bump Map File Format

[dcrosssvpa]

What file format should I be using for bump maps applied to the custom standard material that I create inside Lumion?  I've played around with adding bumps that are grayscale and color but neither seem to give me a great result.  Is there a certain file format and setup I should be using?  For example, .png image type that is set to grayscale color mode in photoshop and is a certain number of pixels by a certain number of pixels at x dpi?

Any input on lightmaps and their use/creation?  Sorry if these are dumb questions.  Just trying to get a better handle on the material options inside Lumion so I can spend less time texturing in Sketchup. 

Thanks,
Dan

[Morten]

NORMALMAPS
There are 2 types of normalmaps (it's actually misleading that the tooltips in Lumion call them bump maps).

You basically want the purple variety (as opposed to the rainbox-coloured ones):
https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=normalmaps&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1055&bih=981&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&authuser=0&ei=s9xhT52WNoHW0QWfyKmYCA

Nvidia's plug-in for Photoshop includes a normalmap filter that can create the purple variety.

We use CrazyBump for creating normalmaps & specular/reflection maps, and I'm sure there are other viable options available these days, for example Texture Maker or Allegorithmic's Bitmap2Material.

LIGHTMAPS FROM SKETCHUP
As far as I know, it is not possible to create lightmaps in SketchUp (at least not without LightUp or other plug-ins?). Some people here in the forum have successfully imported lightmapped models from LightUp, but unfortunately there's not much information about the actual settings they used in LightUp.