they are the same thing.  a normal is a vector that is perpedicular to a
surface.  it is usually considered 'up'.  for example, the normal of a new
default plane happens to be 'up'.  the normal on any point of a sphere is
along the radius, or 'out' from the center.  povray cannot (as yet) perturb
the actual surface of an object, so it fakes it by perturbing the normal
vectors of an object at each point.  this is why a really bumpy surface will
still have a smooth shadow in povray.

ddombrow wrote:

> Exactly what is a normal? I don't mean the bump type of normal, I mean the
> kind you would commonly find in a plane definition.
>
> --
> ddombrow

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