More normal mapping

Are there any free programs that convert a black and white normal map (is it a tangeant map?) into a weird and colourful normal map?

The grayscale maps are generally bump maps, so yes, tangent space maps. Normal maps (the 'colorful' ones) are relative to the object I think.

Here's a photoshop plugin to convert hightmaps to normalmaps - http://developer.nvidia.com/object/nv_texture_tools.html

I coulda sworn this used to be a commandline tool from nvidia but oh well. You'll need somthing more complicated if you want to convert a bumpmapped model to a normal mapped one.

btw does anyone know if the tool "melody" costs money, or if it can be downloaded somewhere? I saw it on the nvidia page, but they didn't say anything about it's price nor did they provide a download link. did I miss something?

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/melody_home.html