Bitmap Channel Embedder
by Jaimi McEntire · 02/02/2009 (12:36 pm) · 9 comments
The Bitmap Channel Embedder is an application that allows you take a bitmap, and embed a channel of that bitmap into another bitmap. This is useful for embedding specular data into the alpha channel of the diffuse map for use in TGEA/
This application is written in C#, and full source code is included. This application has been tested on Vista 32bit and XP 64bit.
To use the application, Execute the Embedder.exe application, Load the Diffuse image (on the left), load the Specular Image (on the right), select the channel that you want to embed, and press Save to save the new image. The selected channel from the right image is then embedded into the alpha channel of the left image, and saved. A sample material definition will be created in the textbox to the right.
Download Bitmap Embedder
(Sample image from Maxim's Fire spider buggy art pack);
Please note this is a "quick and dirty" application. I'm aware there are faster ways to read and process the image, but for the small amount of time it takes, I just didn't care to use them (sometimes, simpler is better).
This application is written in C#, and full source code is included. This application has been tested on Vista 32bit and XP 64bit.
To use the application, Execute the Embedder.exe application, Load the Diffuse image (on the left), load the Specular Image (on the right), select the channel that you want to embed, and press Save to save the new image. The selected channel from the right image is then embedded into the alpha channel of the left image, and saved. A sample material definition will be created in the textbox to the right.
Download Bitmap Embedder
(Sample image from Maxim's Fire spider buggy art pack);
Please note this is a "quick and dirty" application. I'm aware there are faster ways to read and process the image, but for the small amount of time it takes, I just didn't care to use them (sometimes, simpler is better).
About the author
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#3
02/04/2009 (3:42 pm)
yay! just noticed this one! great stuff Jaimi! This one is much more "simple" way of baking "spec" to diffuse than use PaintShopPro! Thanks a lot, i'm sure many ppl will find it useful! 
#4
02/05/2009 (1:05 am)
I kept using a CustomShader for this with a separate specular map, because I didn't find a tool that was able to do just this! Very very useful! Thank you! 
#5
11/03/2009 (7:12 pm)
It's very usefull, thank you for this simple way but great work.
#6
http://www.xenocell.com/dev/Jaimis_Embedder.zip
12/29/2009 (4:31 pm)
Jaimi's server seems to be down, here is an alternate url to get the embedder app from:http://www.xenocell.com/dev/Jaimis_Embedder.zip
#7
04/21/2010 (11:52 am)
This is a very usefull tool, thanks for sharing it Jaimi! 
#8
12/16/2010 (10:19 pm)
Amazing! you would not believe how long I have searched for this!
#9
12/16/2010 (10:22 pm)
Double post sorry. 
Torque 3D Owner Dave Young
Dave Young Games
I have had no ends of trouble reliably doing this with no Photoshop. Thank you very much!