I am generating a render for a brush to be used in sculpture mode to detail the character. I am configuring the node editor and wanted to know. The normalize vector is used for what? What is the function of this normalize?
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related: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/52328/render-depth-maps-with-world-space-z-distance-with-respect-the-camera/52348#52348 and https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/50090/z-pass-to-after-effects/50117#50117 – Aug 24 '17 at 02:32
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Normalize (from the blender manual)
Normalizing a vector scales its magnitude, or length, to a value of 1, but keeps its direction intact.
Why do this for the Z-Pass?
The Z pass is the distance from the camera to the geometry in the scene for every pixel of the image. The camera is the 0 on the scale and the units used for its values are the working units set for the scene (blender units, meters, cm, inches, etc). The Z pass usually has values that exceed the 0 to 1 scale, and thus cannot be displayed as an image.
In order to visualize the information on the Z pass you normalize it so that if fits within the bounds of what can be displayed as an image (o to 1).