Bump up your design.

A ‘bump map’ is a method of simulating 3D relief on a surface without modifying the underlying surface. You apply a grayscale image - or Bump - to another image. Bump maps are often called ‘gray maps’.

The Bump Well.

The Bump Well is where you make Texture Explorer act as a 3D element for the final texture. These functions are in the Layer Editor Room. The Bump map creates the appearance of texture or 3D relief on a surface. To do so, you apply one grayscale image to another image, and recalculate their pixels. Bump is the part of Texture Anarchy that gives your texture its three-dimensional quality.

Bump = 100

Bump = 20

The grayscale value at every pixel of the Bump is interpreted by every corresponding pixel on the Color. Lighter pixels on the Bump are interpreted to increase the impression of relief. Darker pixels have less effect. With the Bump set lower or higher, a texture's look and feel can vary.

Bump 'n light.

The Lighting Editor and the Bump channel are symbiotic. Lights use the Bump channel heavily to create its highlights and shadows. The Lighting Editor actually tells the texture where its highs and lows are. The bump has no real effect on the texture, without lighting.

Why is this? Since your texture is faking a 3D depth, the lights rely on the dark and light areas of a bump map to determine where a shadow or highlight should be. Its lights – up to four of them, in a spectrum of possible colors – fake shadows and highlights on the texture.