Help me understand the Normal node

Linkitch

Okay, I'm still pretty new to Substance Designer and I'm trying to wrap my head around how the Normal node actually works.

I've made a small example:

Tiles generated in Substance Designer


Tile map converted with the Normal Node inside of Substance Designer


Tile map converted with the Normal Node inside of Substance Designer with 10 intensity


Same map converted with nDo


From the description of the normal node, it basically says that it treats the grayscale as a height map. Then why does no gradient show up in the Substance Normal Node?

And how would I got about actually creating an output similar to the one I made with nDo?

Linkitch

Another example using a radial gradient.

Map generated in Substance Designer


Converted with Normal Node


Converted with nDo


How exactly do I smooth out the harsh edge made with the Normal Node, like I did in nDo?

Jerc

In your first example, the map generated by nDo is incorrect and the one generated by SD is actually the correct interpretation of the height map.
A linear slope is represented on a normal map by a color, not by a gradient. The gradient generated by nDo would mean that the tiles would be curved instead of being just flat bent tiles.

In your second example, again the map generated by SD is correct. nDo probably introduce some blurring to the original shape while generating the normal. You can add a HQ blur node to your shape before the tnormal map filter to get the same result.

bugo

Jerc is right, if you want to do "incorrect" normals, you can use blur nodes and blend to get what you're looking for. I also recently created a node that could help you. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10617759/HBNoisePolisher.sbsar