Is it possible to effect the spawning direction of a particle with a normal map? I've been unsuccessful so far in finding information on, or working out how to control the angle that a particle is emitted from using a normal map.

What I'm trying to do is create a texture or UV map and bake a normal map and use that texture to effect the normal that is used by the particle system to create the vectors of the particles.

Ideally I would like to be able to:

Emit a wave or hemisphere pattern from a plane.

Paint on a direction for particular patches of grass or hair.

Paint a set normal in order to simulate fabrics or faux fur that is manufactured with a direction. (eg, default blue is upright. various changes in colour tilt the hair direction)

Have I missed something simple or is this currently not possible?
I don't know a way to incorporate normal maps, you could achieve the effect you described by Subdividing W the plane several times. And deform it e.g. using Proportional Editing.



This way you would also be able to animate the geometry with Shape Keys