Parallax Shader question

Questions & Answers
1

I’m looking at this Parallax Diffuse shader. It seems to take 3 bitmaps. The Heightmap has (A) in its name. The documentation says: The Height Map is contained in the alpha channel of the Normal map.

If that’s true, it implies that the Normal map is 32 bit and the alpha channel of it is the grey height map, right? Then why is there a separate texture slot for Heightmap?

2

Apparently it’s historical, but indeed the rgb components of the Heightmap are ignored, and the alpha is used for height.