Patent ID: 6825851
Filing Date: 2004-11-30
Classification: G06T,G09G

Abstract:
In a graphics system that renders and displays images at least in part in response to polygon vertex data and texture data stored in memory, said system capable of direct and indirect mode texture coordinate processing, a method of environment-mapped bump mapping based on a bump map function modeled with respect to a flat surface, comprising the steps of:(a) supplying Normal, Binormal and Tangent vector information per vertex as vertex attribute data associated with an object surface and generating texture coordinates based on said vector information; (b) using a set of indirect mode texture coordinates to reference bump map data stored as texture data in memory; (c) combining bump map data referenced in step (b) with texture coordinates generated from said Normal, Binormal and Tangent surface vector information to compute vector-perturbed texture coordinates based at least in part on the bump map data; (d) saving a set of computed perturbed texture coordinates for reuse in performing multiple lookups to a texel in a plurality of different color and/or image data maps stored as texture data in memory; (e) performing a lookup to a texel in a light map stored as texture data in memory to retrieve lighting data for shading a pixel, wherein the lookup is based on computed perturbed texture coordinates saved in step (d); (f) performing a lookup to a texel in an environment map stored as texture data in memory to retrieve color data for shading said pixel, wherein the lookup is based on perturbed texture coordinates saved in step (d) and used in step (e); and shading said pixel based on lighting data and color data acquired from at least said light map and said environment map; wherein steps (a) through (f) are performed during a single rendering pass.