9.5.2

850 • CHAPTER 18
MATERIAL EDITOR • 851
Normal
This material channel is for use with Normal textures via “Normal Mapping”. What on earth is “Normal
Mapping”? Well, Normal mapping is a technique that comes from computer game development that
makes it possible to give a low-poly object (a low level of detail) a detailed, seemingly structured
surface, resulting in low render times.
Bump mapping uses a grayscale bitmap to generate height data. Normal mapping uses an RGB texture
with coded Normal orientation (the Normals can be oriented in various directions).
A Normal texture can look something like this:
Normal texture
These “strange” colors contain the coded Normal orientation for each point on the surface: Each red,
green, and blue color channel represents one dimension – X, Y or Z. The Normal orientation is no
longer dictated by the geometry, but by the Normal texture.