Yeah the normal map would have to be transformed to -1 to 1 first. (so *2 -1) Edit: I've seen people do similar math and transformations in photoshop before with actions, so it should be possible to set up something that would allow you to make a bent normal map right in ps provided the nm and the ao (maybe by splitting…
Yep, but the maths I'm suggesting works and is much easier (you can do it in PS without scripts in sbout five seconds). If you start off with the normal vector xyz (.71, 0, .71) and you wanted to shorten it to 50% length, you'd divide the length by 2. You could also get the same result by 'blending' it 50% towards zero -…