1991-2006
Silicon Graphics, Inc.
glNormal
3G

# glNormal

set the current normal vector

## C Specification

                    void glNormal3b
                    GLbyte nx
                    GLbyte ny
                    GLbyte nz

                    void glNormal3d
                    GLdouble nx
                    GLdouble ny
                    GLdouble nz

                    void glNormal3f
                    GLfloat nx
                    GLfloat ny
                    GLfloat nz

                    void glNormal3i
                    GLint nx
                    GLint ny
                    GLint nz

                    void glNormal3s
                    GLshort nx
                    GLshort ny
                    GLshort nz

## Parameters

`nx`
`ny`
`nz`

  Specify the x, y, and z coordinates of the new current normal. The initial value of the current normal is the unit vector, (0, 0, 1).

## C Specification

                    void glNormal3bv
                    const GLbyte * v

                    void glNormal3dv
                    const GLdouble * v

                    void glNormal3fv
                    const GLfloat * v

                    void glNormal3iv
                    const GLint * v

                    void glNormal3sv
                    const GLshort * v

## Parameters

`v`

  Specifies a pointer to an array of three elements: the x, y, and z coordinates of the new current normal.

## Description

The current normal is set to the given coordinates whenever `glNormal` is issued. Byte, short, or integer arguments are converted to floating-point format with a linear mapping that maps the most positive representable integer value to 1.0 and the most negative representable integer value to -1.0 .

Normals specified with `glNormal` need not have unit length. If `GL_NORMALIZE` is enabled, then normals of any length specified with `glNormal` are normalized after transformation. If `GL_RESCALE_NORMAL` is enabled, normals are scaled by a scaling factor derived from the modelview matrix. `GL_RESCALE_NORMAL` requires that the originally specified normals were of unit length, and that the modelview matrix contain only uniform scales for proper results. To enable and disable normalization, call glEnable and glDisable with either `GL_NORMALIZE` or `GL_RESCALE_NORMAL`. Normalization is initially disabled.

## Notes

The current normal can be updated at any time. In particular, `glNormal` can be called between a call to glBegin and the corresponding call to glEnd.

## Associated Gets

glGet with argument `GL_CURRENT_NORMAL`

glIsEnabled with argument `GL_NORMALIZE`

glIsEnabled with argument `GL_RESCALE_NORMAL`

## See Also

glBegin, glColor, glIndex, glMultiTexCoord, glNormalPointer, glTexCoord, glVertex

## Copyright

Copyright 1991-2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc. This document is licensed under the SGI Free Software B License. For details, see http://oss.sgi.com/projects/FreeB/.