SSbump Generator 5.1 w/ CUDA

SSbump generator is a free GUI based program. The purpose of this program is to generate Self-Shadowed Bump Maps for VALVe's Source game engine. The program can generate normal maps, non-shadowed ssbump maps, or embed directional ambient occlusion into the image.

Height Map (Alpha Channel) + Normal Map

Generated SSbump Map with Ambient Occlusion

A Screenshot of the Program

All shadows generated with this tool will wrap around the image. Below is the same image generated above without the normal map repeated 9 times. (Just the Ambient Occlusion generated with a radius of 0.1)

A 512X512 pixel ssbump map with ambient occlusion in the game Garry's Mod. (Click on the image for a larger picture)

A 4096X2048 pixel ssbump map with ambient occlusion in the game Garry's Mod. (Click the Image for a larger picture)

Download Newest Version Here (Note: This runs on Windows XP and Vista 32-bit and 64-bit. It has not been tested on any other operating systems)

Tutorial Here

Change Log

Version 5.1
Added more options to the normal map generator.
Fixed bug that prevented saving files from the post process window.
Added more ssbump lighting methods.
Modified ssbump generation code to prevent over brightening.
Modified the AO generation code to be more memory efficient on the CPU and GPU.
Updated GPU code to CUDA version 2.3
Added a grayscale button for 'estimating' height maps from color images (Thanks to sgtSarge for writing the code.)
Minor bug fixes.

Version 5.0 BUGFIX #3
Fixed a bug introduced by the first bugfix that caused the program to crash if the normal map generator was opened more than once after adding layers.

Version 5.0 BUGFIX #2

Fixed a bug introduced by the previous bugfix that prevented the post processing window from loading the generated image if "Generated Selected" had been clicked.

Version 5.0 BUGFIX
Fixed a bug that caused normal maps generated with a Gaussian blur to have a boarder of incorrect pixels.
Redirected help to correct web page.
Fixed a couple bugs that resulted in the loss of selection when exiting and reentering the normal map menu.
Added an option that will allow fast access to the SourceForge web page to check for updates.

Version 5.0
Added a normal map generator.
Redesigned User Interface to be more user friendly.
Added support for 14 different file types.
Licensed the program under the GPLv3 license.
Rewrote CUDA SSbump and AO generation code.
Added CUDA accelerated normal map generation.

Moved CUDA code into a Dll file and allowed the GPU do handle more of the processing tasks.

Added a few extra test tools that allow converting of normal maps to DuDv maps or base Specular maps.
Converted smooth blurs into Gaussian blurs.

Created a layer based system for blending normal map layers together to create 'bumpier' normal maps.
Modified how the post process window looks.

Added option to blend together ssbump and directional ambient occlusion in the post-processing window.
Changed some default settings.
Changed how the GPU settings look.
Modified Status Bar.
Fixed some bugs with previews.
Added normal map menu.
Added a preview window to the normal map menu.

Version 4.2

Moved options into a Settings window.
Allowed the Disabling of Vertical and/or Horizontal tiling per image.
Modified some background code in the post process window.
Added an option that allows the user to select and generate a group of images from the image list. (Instead of generating all the images in the image list at once)
Changed Image List Saving format. (NOTE: Previously saved image lists will no longer load.) This also prevents the accidental loading of a non-image list file.

Version 4.1 Bugfix

Fixed a bug with the CUDA extention that prevented rendering images inside folders with spaces in the name.

Version 4.1

Decreased the amount of RAM used by the CUDA extension and the main program.
Changed the layout of the GUI.
Added a Post Processing visualizer.
Fixed some minor bugs with CUDA error messages.
Added more short cut keys.
Changed default slider values.

Major Revision 4.0

Fixed a couple of major bugs in the generator that were causing slow rendering times, and prevented the rendering of high ray count images.
Comparison of new/old render times:

256X256 Image, Radius 0.1, Height Scale 0.03, Rays 1000 (Per color channel 3000 in total)

1 X CPU (2.5 GHz) 22.93 sec (CUDA 10X faster)
4 X CPU (2.5 GHz) 7.71 sec (CUDA 4X faster)
1 X 9800GTX GPU 2.808 sec
Old Version 3.1 Rendering Times

1 X CPU (2.5 GHz) 5:00 min 0% Complete. Stopped.
4 X CPU (2.5 GHz) 3:00 min 1% Complete. (Est. ~300 min)

1024X1024, Radius 0.3, Height Scale 0.2, Rays 300 (Per color channel 900 in total)

4 X CPU (2.5 GHz) 28:35.17 min (CUDA 15X faster)
1 X CPU (2.5 GHz) ~114:20.68 min (Est. ~4X 4 CPU Time)
1 X 9800GTX GPU 1:55.33 min
Old Version 3.1 Rendering Times: N/A (Too Slow)

Added a CUDA extension that allows the use of NVIDIA Geforce 8000 series and newer GPUs to render the images. This offers a speed increase of around 10X - 60X compared to a single CPU. (Calculated using a GPU connected to a monitor display. May get better render times using an unused GPU)
Added an option to allow/disallow recursive folder searching.
Removed all older versions from the web.

Version 3.1

Fixed minor bug with the status bar.
Changed the way that the status bar is displayed.
Cleaned up parts of the source code.
Minor optimizations.
Made more parts of the generation process multi-threaded.

Version 3.0

Added a GUI
Added two brightness options. One for the height map and one for the final image.

Version 2.1

Fixed Bugs
Optimized more
Added a multi-threaded option for multi-processor computers.
Added two contrast options. One for increasing the contrast of the height map and another for increasing the contrast of the final image.
Added a smoothing option. One for smoothing the height map and another for smoothing the final image.
Added an option for generating ssbumps without the normal map.
Added an option to specify the minimum and maximum color values when calculating ambient occlusion.

-Thanks to MrTwoVideoCards from Interlopers.net for the new option ideas.
-Thanks to Toli from the Paint.NET forums for the smoothing code.

Version 2.0

Added ambient occlusion generation