Normal Map Preview - Aseprite Extension

Normal Map Preview is a lightweight but powerful Aseprite extension that lets you visualize lighting on your normal maps in real-time using a built-in preview window. Perfect for pixel artists working with normal maps in game development, shaders, or stylized 2D lighting workflows.

Here are the examples

• Live Canvas Preview: See your normal map react to light instantly inside a dialog window.

• Custom Light Direction: Adjust X, Y components of the light vector and see the preview update in real-time.

• Intuitive Controls: Simple sliders or number inputs for quick testing and tweaking.

• Accurate Lighting Model: Uses dot product shading based on the RGB normals of your sprite.

• Non-destructive: Doesn't alter your original sprite — preview is rendered separately.

• .aseprite-extension file for easy installation

• License file for personal and commercial use terms

• Installation guide included in the zip

• Aseprite v1.2.30+ (or any version that supports Lua scripting and the Dialog API)

• Your sprite must contain a normal map layer (named Normal or Normal Map) and a diffuse layer (named Diffuse) for preview.

• Preview how your sprite looks under dynamic light in pixel-art engines

• Iterate quickly on painted normal maps without exporting to external tools

• Create better-looking textures for game engines like Unity or Godot

• Preview with animations

• Full-color light tinting

• Preview window zoom in & out

• Add Z position of the light source

• Export preview image to sprite layer