Editing Normal mapping (section)

==Normal mapping in video games==
Interactive normal map rendering was originally only possible on [[PixelFlow]], a [[parallel rendering]] machine built at the [[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill]].{{citation needed|date=February 2012}} It was later possible to perform normal mapping on high-end [[Silicon Graphics|SGI]] workstations using multi-pass rendering and [[framebuffer]] operations<ref>Heidrich and Seidel, [http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~heidrich/Papers/Siggraph.99.pdf Realistic, Hardware-accelerated Shading and Lighting] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050129211042/http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~heidrich/Papers/Siggraph.99.pdf |date=2005-01-29 }}, [[SIGGRAPH]] 1999 '''([[PDF]])'''</ref> or on low end PC hardware with some tricks using paletted textures. However, with the advent of [[shader]]s in personal computers and game consoles, normal mapping became widespread in the early 2000s, with some of the first games to implement it being [[Evolva]] (2000), [[Giants: Citizen Kabuto]], and [[Virtua Fighter 4]] (2001).<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-11-30 |title=Virtua Fighter 4 |url=https://segaretro.org/Virtua_Fighter_4 |access-date=2024-03-03 |website=Sega Retro |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2012-04-18 |title=Tecnologías gráficas en los juegos |url=https://as.com/meristation/2006/08/01/reportajes/1154449800_036749.html |access-date=2024-03-03 |website=Meristation |language=es}}</ref> Normal mapping's popularity for [[real-time rendering]] is due to its good quality to processing requirements ratio versus other methods of producing similar effects. Much of this efficiency is made possible by [[Level of detail (computer graphics)|distance-indexed detail scaling]], a technique which selectively decreases the detail of the normal map of a given texture (cf. [[mipmapping]]), meaning that more distant surfaces require less complex lighting simulation. Many authoring pipelines use high resolution models [[Baking (computer graphics)|baked]] into low/medium resolution in-game models augmented with normal maps.

Basic normal mapping can be implemented in any hardware that supports palettized textures. The first game console to have specialized normal mapping hardware was the Sega [[Dreamcast]]. However, Microsoft's [[Xbox (console)|Xbox]] was the first console to widely use the effect in retail games. Out of the [[sixth generation console]]s{{Citation needed|reason=Source needed showing gamecube flipper support of dot3 operations|date=August 2020}}, only the [[PlayStation 2]]'s [[PlayStation 2#Technical specifications|GPU]] lacks built-in normal mapping support, though it can be simulated using the PlayStation 2 hardware's vector units. Games for the [[Xbox 360]] and the [[PlayStation 3]] rely heavily on normal mapping and were the first game console generation to make use of [[parallax mapping]]. The [[Nintendo 3DS]] has been shown to support normal mapping, as demonstrated by ''[[Resident Evil: Revelations]]'' and ''[[Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater]]''.