Hi,

here is the thing - I don't understand normal maps. I know they are supposed to work like bump maps and add hight to a surface. But it seems they do more than that? The seem to change the way thje light is being cast over an object. And that changes with the value of the normal map... or is it menat to be at 1 all the time? Or is it not good to use them together with bump maps?

An example...

on this ball there is only the colour map and the normal map at a value of 1, 0.5 and 0.05 (from top to bottom). The lower the value, the smoother the light/shadow seems to be?

Also, the ball has a subdivisdion level o3. If I turn that of, this is what happens... (normal map at value 1 again)