Ok so this is one of those gaps in comprehension that I've continually suppressed until now, but I'd really like to have a better understanding: why isn't the normalized blue channel of the normal map always equal to 1? If the normal map represents Cartesian coordinates x, y, z, given x^2 + y^2 = z^2, then z would equal…
Yes, you could rotate a spherical coordinate system around the Y axis (and adjust you angle values (add pi/2 to theta and -pi/2 to phi). So your theta-hat to Cartesian would look like this: x=sin(theta+pi) y=cos(theta+pi)sin(phi) z=cos(theta+pi)cos(phi) which simplifies to: x = -sin(theta) y = -cos(theta)sin(phi) z =…