How to combine or replace "Diffuse" BSDF with "Emission" on model that uses normal maps? I've figured out how to apply normal maps onto diffuse textures the correct way (thanks BSE :D), but now I've been searching on how I can use a normal map with an emission shader. I haven't found a proper solution after some digging, unfortunately.

Is there a way I could add or mix it in? I tried using a mix shader and connecting the emission shader that way, but it just makes the model grey-ish. Changing "color" from white to black has no effect, and changing the strength doesn't do anything neither.

Here's the setup I have going. Everything's spot-on except that I really need an emission shader. The point is to maintain my shadow-less &amp; noise-less method like some of my other renders without any normal maps used. It also makes rendering time significantly quick. The top priority pretty much is to get that Emission shader in and also get it to work its magic, while maintaining the normal map.


And here's the model without its normal map, for additional reference.



Thanks!
You could use vector maths to affect the strength of the Emission based on how close the Incoming ray is to the Normal using a setup similar to the following :



Note that I've used a Bump node to generate the normal - rather than a normal map - but the same principle applies.

The Incoming ray is the ray (in world space) projecting from the camera to the surface. The Dot Product compares the Incoming ray with the Normal and produces an output that varies based on how closely those vectors are to being in the same direction. The Power node is set to 'Clamp' to prevent negative values (where the ray is effectively from the 'back' of the surface) and changing the Value allows the strength of the effect to be adjusted.



In order to change the direction of the apparent illumination and shadows you can add a Mapping node and set the rotation as desired :