Free normal map generator
Normal, height, roughness and AO maps

An image that stores which way each point of a surface faces, in its red, green and blue channels. A renderer uses it to light fine detail, such as the grain of wood or the joints in a brick wall, on a flat surface without adding geometry.

It depends on the software. Blender, Unity, Maya and Substance use OpenGL, which is the default here. Unreal Engine and 3ds Max use DirectX, so tick DirectX before downloading. The only difference is the green channel, which is flipped.

A height map stores how high each point is, from black (low) to white (high); used as a bump map it only changes the lighting, and used as a displacement map it moves the geometry. A normal map stores the slope of that height, which lights fine detail more accurately than a bump map.

The maps are read from the brightness of the image, which works well for bricks, stone, wood, plaster and fabric photographed straight on in soft light. Painted patterns and strong shadows are read as relief too. It is a quick approximation, not a 3D scan or a bake from a high-poly model.

Any size opens. Images larger than 2048 pixels on the long side are scaled down to 2048, which keeps the tool fast on a normal laptop. All maps are saved at the same size as the working image.

No. The maps are made in this browser tab on your own computer, and the image is never sent to us or anyone else. It is free, with no sign-up and no limit.

Use our free seamless textures: 41 tileable materials, each with a colour map and a normal map. Drop one here to make its height, roughness and ambient occlusion maps.