Free Normal
Map Maker

A normal map changes how light reacts across a 3D surface without adding polygons. Each RGB pixel stores a local surface direction, allowing brick joints, fabric grain, scratches and similar details to influence highlights and shading while the model silhouette stays unchanged. This makes normal mapping useful for games, product visualization and other real-time scenes where convincing detail must fit within a practical geometry budget.

Most finished materials rely on more than one texture, so artists usually author several normal maps across an environment or asset library and keep them consistent with the other channels. Normal Map Maker converts an image or height map into tangent-space directions inside your browser. It derives a grayscale height field, measures neighboring pixel changes with a Sobel or Scharr filter, and normalizes those slopes into an RGB texture. The process is deterministic rather than generative AI: strength, blur, edge handling and channel direction remain visible controls, and the 2D output plus 3D material preview help you judge the result before export.

A clean height map is the most predictable source because brightness already represents elevation. A photo, diffuse texture, PNG, JPG or WebP can also work when it is front-facing and evenly lit. Strong shadows, reflections and painted color patterns may be mistaken for depth because a single image does not contain true geometry. For photo conversion, start with a neutral crop and use a small amount of blur before increasing strength.

PNG is a strong default for lossless sources and transparent materials. JPG is convenient for photographs, but compression blocks can become false fine detail. The tool preserves transparent pixels as a mask and supports images up to 4096 pixels on desktop, with a lower mobile limit to reduce memory pressure. Source quality matters more than file extension: remove lighting gradients, repair visible seams and decide whether bright areas should appear raised before generating the map.

Begin with moderate Strength and Level values. Scharr preserves crisp, balanced detail from a good height source, while Sobel can feel slightly softer on noisy images. Blur is applied before gradient calculation, so it removes small fluctuations rather than merely softening the finished texture. Repeat edge mode is useful for seamless materials; Clamp is safer for decals and non-tiling images. A practical tangent-space result remains mostly blue, with red and green changes around meaningful slopes.

If dents appear as bumps along one direction, check the green channel convention. Blender, Unity and Godot use OpenGL-style +Y normal maps, while Unreal Engine uses DirectX-style -Y maps. The convention switch flips that direction without changing the source. Use the moving light in the PBR preview to catch reversed shading, hard seams and excessive intensity before download, then confirm the shader settings in the destination project.

The online normal map generator can also create height, roughness, metallic, ambient occlusion and ORM textures from the same source. Height can support parallax or displacement. Roughness estimates reflection spread from local detail, metallic uses an adjustable threshold, and ambient occlusion approximates small crevice shading. These derived maps are starting points, not measurements: one image cannot reveal the complete physical response of a material, so review each channel instead of accepting it blindly.

ORM packs ambient occlusion into red, roughness into green and metallic into blue to reduce texture count in compatible shaders. Keep roughness broad enough to avoid sparkling highlights, verify metallic by material class rather than brightness, and use texture AO subtly. Exported data maps should be imported as Linear or Non-Color data; albedo remains sRGB. The engine presets and explicit filenames help keep channel direction and packed-map meaning clear when assets move into Blender, Unity, Unreal Engine or Godot.

Your source image is decoded, processed and previewed on your device. The website has no image upload endpoint, cloud project library or database for source and generated textures. Image pixels, filenames and settings are not stored in cookies, localStorage or IndexedDB. Reloading or closing the tab clears the active project because the application does not keep a server copy. This local-first workflow is useful for client work and unreleased art, although browser extensions and device software remain outside the site's control.

Before exporting, inspect the normal map under a moving light and test tiling on the plane preview. Confirm the OpenGL or DirectX direction, check every packed ORM channel, and judge detail at the final texel density rather than only at full zoom. Eight-bit PNG is suitable for most material maps; optional 16-bit height reduces stepping when real displacement needs more precision. Treat the generated files as a transparent, editable foundation and make the final material decisions in your preferred art or engine workflow.