Normal Map Generator
Explore direction colors on a sample sine-wave surface. This tool creates a design guide, without extracting a height map from an image.
A QUICK WALKTHROUGH
How to use this tool
- Set the sample height from 0 to 1 and intensity from 0 to 4.
- Choose a 16, 32 or 64 cell grid and generate the guide.
- Review the direction-color graphic and download SVG.
Procedural sample and formula
The sample surface is h(u,v) = height × sin(2πu) × sin(2πv). Analytic slopes are multiplied by intensity; the normalized vector (−∂h/∂u, −∂h/∂v, 1) is encoded into RGB. Red, green and blue illustrate x, y and z components. Image coordinates use downward-positive y.
Output boundary
The 512 × 512 SVG is a color-cell guide with at most 4,096 rectangles and 512 KiB. It does not read photos, derive height from images, bake a mesh, define tangent-space handedness for an engine, or guarantee physically based materials. No seamless-texture or engine-compatibility qualification is provided. All settings and generation remain local.
GOOD TO KNOW
Common questions
Can I upload a height-map image?
No. Inputs control a fixed procedural sample only. Use a dedicated texture workflow for image height extraction, mesh baking or engine-ready normal maps.
How do height and intensity differ?
Height changes the amplitude of the sample surface. Intensity multiplies its slopes for the illustrative direction colors. Either at zero gives a flat guide; increasing them exaggerates the colors.