Normal mapping is a great way of showing more detail on a 3D model by simulating the way the surface detail responds to light. It is a 2D effect so it will not change the shape of an object, but inside the profile outlines it can simulate a tremendous amount of extra detail. This is very useful for real time game engines where processing power is a limiting factor or animations where it’s render time that can be the limiting factor.
It’s very similar to bump mapping in that they both achieve the same effect.However, bump mapping simulates vertical offsets relative to the face direction it’s projected on, new directions are a result of the height differences between neighboring pixels. Normal mapping on the other hand uses colors to indicate directional offsets, making it far more efficient.
The red channel in a normal map encodes the left-right axis of normal blue channel encodes vertical depth.
Here in these picture below you can see how low poly they are but yet how detailed they are because of the normal mapping.
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