ShaderMap CL is a Windows® command line tool for converting...

Diffuse Maps to:

• Displacement (Height) Maps
• Normal Maps
• Ambient Occlusion Maps
• Specular Maps
• DUDV Maps

Displacement Maps to:

• Normal Maps
• Ambient Occlusion Maps
• Specular Maps
• DUDV Maps

Normal Maps to:

• Displacement (Height) Maps
• Normal Maps
• Ambient Occlusion Maps
• Specular Maps
• DUDV Maps

It also has commands to:

• Control Output Settings
• Pack Channel Data

Command lines are passed to shadermap.exe by batch script or by any means permitted by the Windows® operating system. The program executes commands passed to it and outputs the new maps in the same directory as the source image. Each new map has a suffix (ex. sourcename_NORM.tga) applied to it. Let's take a look at a command that converts a normal map to a displacement map. First we see the program name shadermap.exe. Next is the cnorm command. cnorm tells ShaderMap CL to convert the source normal image. Next we see the source image location. This tells ShaderMap CL how to load the source image. Finally we see -disp (*,*,*,*). The -disp argument tells ShaderMap CL to convert the source to a displacement map. Following -disp is a space then (*,*,*,*). These stars represent the -disp argument parameters. A star (*) indicates that a default value will be used for a given parameter. When executed this command line will convert norm.tga to a displacement map and save it in the same directory as norm.tga (which in this case is c:/) with the name norm_DISP.bmp.

There are other commands to convert diffuse (cdiff) and displacement (cdisp) maps as well. Learn about them in ShaderMap CL Commands.

To learn more about the -disp argument and its parameters see ShaderMap CL Arguments.