Free Bump Map Generator - Create Height Maps Instantly

A visual representation of how bump maps simulate vertical depth on a flat plane.

Modern Physically Based Rendering (PBR) workflows lean heavily toward normal mapping, but older rendering engines, architectural visualization tools, and mobile shaders often require a grayscale bump map. Our web tool natively supports this pipeline, serving as a fast, browser-based bump map generator.

What is a Bump Texture Generator?

A bump map generator (or bump texture generator) processes a standard color input (such as an Albedo or Diffuse map) and extracts its relative height information into a single-channel grayscale texture.

The shader translates these grayscale values as vertical displacement:

• White pixels indicate peak heights.
• Black pixels indicate crevices, cracks, or valleys.
• Gray tones represent slopes and smooth vertical transitions.

Bump Maps vs. Normal Maps

While a normal map uses RGB channels to specify exact 3D surface direction (vectors), a bump map only calculates height (up/down values). You can read about how this vertical height data works in our Height Map Guide.

Because they contain only a single channel of data, bump maps are easy to edit in Photoshop and require less memory. However, they lack the multi-directional light interaction accuracy of a true normal map.

How to Generate a Bump Map Online

You do not need heavy desktop software to generate elevation maps. Our Free Online Generator computes height vectors directly in your browser.

When you drop a file into our tool, it calculates normal vectors and height values concurrently. In modern shaders, a “Height Map”, “Displacement Map”, and “Bump Map” are format-identical (grayscale maps)—they differ only in how the engine’s shader interprets them.

Steps to use the generator:

1. Drag and drop your image into the workspace.
2. In the center preview controls, select the Displacement tab.
3. Fine-tune the Level (contrast) and Blur sliders to control the sharpness of your height map peaks.
4. Export the resulting grayscale PNG and load it into your material’s Bump or Height input slot.

Whether you are using an older rendering engine or driving a complex parallax occlusion shader, our bump texture generator provides the clean, high-contrast elevation data you need.