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Normal Map / Bump Map

Learn how Normal Maps and Bump Maps simulate surface details including Sketchfab's requirements for tangent space maps, DirectX/OpenGL Y-axis orientation settings, and linear grayscale bump maps

Written by Elaine

The Normal Map or Bump Map channel uses a texture to add bumps, dents, and other details to the surface of a model.

Normal Map

Currently, Sketchfab only supports tangent space normal mapping. Other types of normal maps like object-space or world-space normal maps are not supported, and using them can produce unexpected results on Sketchfab. If you export a valid format with tangent spaces, we keep them. Otherwise, if you include UVs, we generate the tangent spaces.

Enable Invert Y to reverse the bumps and dents, depending on whether your normal map was created based on OpenGL or DirectX.

We expect DirectX (Y-) normal maps by default, so if you're using DirectX, you should not need to change anything, but if you're using OpenGL (Y+), you'll need to flip the toggle in 3D Settings.

Bump Map

A bump map is usually a linear grayscale image.

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