Uploaded December 2017 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
This week we bring you more examples of height mapping on a range of ground textures. In case you missed our earlier videos, this parallax effect is a distant relative of normal mapping, where the texture includes an additional "height" channel in addition to the usual XYZ normal information.
The height information is used to perform simple ray-tracing on the GPU, resulting in some ultra-realistic visuals. To be entirely honest, the technique does have its limitations - you can't simply add it to every asset and expect it to benefit everything equally - but used correctly for example on our terrain system, it can add a lot to the scene.
For more information on the next Trainz product visit trainzportal.com
This week we bring you more examples of height mapping on a range of ground textures. In case you missed our earlier videos, this parallax effect is a distant relative of normal mapping, where the texture includes an additional "height" channel in addition to the usual XYZ normal information.
The height information is used to perform simple ray-tracing on the GPU, resulting in some ultra-realistic visuals. To be entirely honest, the technique does have its limitations - you can't simply add it to every asset and expect it to benefit everything equally - but used correctly for example on our terrain system, it can add a lot to the scene.
For more information on the next Trainz product visit trainzportal.com
