Give flat sprites depth under 2D lights. Drop a sprite, move the light across it in the preview, and download a normal map that Godot and Unity read as it is. Nothing leaves your device.
Made on your device. Your images are never uploaded.
How it works
Choose, drop or paste a sprite, a tile or a texture. A whole folder works too.
Pick where the depth comes from and how strong it is, and move the pointer over the preview to see the light fall on it.
The map is saved as name_n.png, the name engines pair with the sprite, at the sprite’s own size.
Normal Map Generator
The preview lights the sprite with its own normal map, so you judge the result and not a purple picture.
Round a flat-coloured sprite from its outline, read the relief of a texture from its light and dark, or mix both.
Green up for Godot and Unity, or flipped for Unreal, with the sprite’s transparency kept.
Everything happens in your browser, so your pictures stay on your device.
In detail
A sprite is flat, so a light in a 2D game brightens it evenly, like a sticker. A normal map is a second image of the same size whose colours say which way each pixel faces. With it, the engine lights the side of the sprite that faces the lamp and shades the other side.
No drawing holds that information, so it has to be guessed. This tool guesses a height for every pixel and turns the slopes of that height into the map.
In Godot, create a CanvasTexture, put the sprite in Diffuse and the map in Normal Map, and add a PointLight2D or a DirectionalLight2D to the scene. In Unity, add the map as a secondary texture named _NormalMap in the Sprite Editor and light the scene with the 2D lights of the Universal Render Pipeline.
Both read green as up, which is how the map is saved. Turn on Flip the green channel for engines that read it as down, such as Unreal.
Normal Map Generator
No. Everything runs in your browser, on your own device. Your images are never sent to Moriqa or anyone else, and nothing is kept after you close the page.
Add the sprite, choose where the depth comes from, check the lit preview, and download the PNG. It has the same size as the sprite.
Its colours are directions, not colours: red runs left to right, green up and down, and blue points at the viewer. A flat surface comes out as the typical light purple.
Yes. The map keeps the sprite’s exact size and its hard edges. Keep the smoothing low for a crisp, chunky look, or raise it for softer light.
No. It is a good starting point, and often good enough for props and tiles. For a main character, artists usually correct the map by hand.
Not for Godot or Unity. Flip it only if the light seems to come from below when it is above, which means your engine reads green the other way.
Open Moriqa’s pixel art editor to draw and animate sprites, free in your browser.
