cortona extensions to vrml

embed parameters

(for a full list, see the cortona documentation page)

renderer choice

cortona allows you to set the rendering library to use via the rendererName parameter:


rendererName="OpenGL Renderer"
rendererName="DirectX Renderer"

rendererName="R98 Renderer"

<embed rendererName="R98 Renderer" src="my.wrl" width="512" height="512">

non-rectangular window

you can specify an arbitrary polygon to use as the render window mask with the mask parameter. the parameter value is a comma-separated list of 2-d pixel locations to be connected in order. a connection is automatically made from the last point back to the first. the origin is in the upper left, so the following specifies a downward-pointing triangular window (optional spaces put in for clarity):
<embed mask="0,0, 512,0, 256,512" src="my.wrl" width="512" height="512">

no context menu

you can turn off the right-click menu with the contextMenu parameter.
<embed contextMenu="false" src="my.wrl" width="512" height="512">

no toolbar

you can turn off the navigation menu with the vrml_dashboard parameter.
<embed vrml_dashboard="false" src="my.wrl" width="512" height="512">

advanced texturing

bump mapping

bump mapping is implemented in cortona through the BumpMap node and only works with the DirectX or software (R98) renderer.

it works by adjusting surface normals at a per-pixel level, to give the appeareance of additional surface geometry without the rendering overhead of the gazillion actual vertices you'd need to create the same detail with polygons. note that this adjustment of normals does not change the underlying geometry, only the result of lighting calculations.

so, bump map is really a normal map; the x, y and z components of a normal are being encoded at every pixel in the red, green and blue channels, and thus bump mapping usually implies two textures, one is the normal information, one is the color information.

example: monkeys on a plane [»]

what you need to make it work

there are actually a lot of tools available to help you create normal maps. they might be categorized into two main categories—tools for making bump maps out of images, and tools for making bump maps out of models.
general info

general info about normal maps [»]
tutorial on how to make and use normal maps [»]

image tools

nvidia's normal map filter plugin for photoshop [»]
generating normal maps in blender [»]

model tools

approximating normal maps with lighting [»]
generating normal maps from hi-res models in maya with a free plug-in [»]
nvidia's normal mapper and normal mapperUI applications for generating normal maps from hi-res models [»]

vrml tools

BumpAppearance [PROTO] [example]