Spotmask Normal

This render element allows you to store the directions in which all surfaces are facing. This data can later be used to generate accurate reflections for light sources that were not there during the original render.

Options

• Coordinate Space

  You can choose between 3 different options how your normal maps are generated:

  • World Space

    All normal directions are in world space and can directly be used by compositing software regardless of the object’s UV layout.

  • Object Space

    The coordinate systems for the UV data are individual for each object and normal directions are always relative to that object’s orientation. This allows you to always identify object’s relative directions no matter how it’s rotated.

  • Camera Space

    This generates view based normal maps that work exactly like normal maps for textures. Use this when the image you are rendering is intended to be used as a texture and you want to create a matching UV map for it.

• Clamp Color Space

  By default Spotmask Normal stores vector data that goes beyond the normal range expected for colors. Floating point color channels end up having data between -1.0 and 1.0, representing accurate vectors. Viewing the rendered file in an image viewer will often not show a recognizable image.

  This behavior is fine for compositing but some software does not support the rendered file at all if its data exceeds the normal color range. Many game engines expect their normal maps to be images that don’t exceed the color range. By using the clamping option you can have all vector data translated to the visible color space that maps all channels into the range between 0.0 and 1.0.

• Output

  This specifies how the directions are mapped to the 3 color channels of the output image.

  The default corresponds to the most widely used configuration and most software that utilizes normal maps also includes options to swap channels on demand, so you’ll rarely need to adjust these options at all.