look, few developers can freehand a normalmap (I can and maybe you). In this case depth is sought for and that's not the strength of a normalmap shader. Its strength is surface distortion by light ie having a cracked stone surface. If a developer want this implemented efficiently for animation there "should" be a 3D base. As in a polygon character with skinning, rig, texture and animations. by that point fusion isn't the suitable package for your game, as your resources are 3D.
Dipping into prerendering, this method is efficient for 2D when the base isn't optimized with texturebased shaders like normalmap, specularmap, ambientmap etc (names and type may differ between groups/companies). Even making an optimized UV is unnecessary as the source texture isn't brought into the final game.
The 2D normalmapping technique & idea thereof has been around for 10 years (inside educational facilities). There is a reason why it hasn't been implemented. I'm typing this because I'm invested into Fusion and this would hurt other functionality of Fusion 3 that I believe this userbase and myself need more.
My point
There are areas in Fusion that require attention much prior to normalmap shading. Ie external sources, keyboard/mouse input, network, encryption.
Collaborative suggestions
No one is stopping you guys from getting together and make the support by extension as Anders did. SolarB is making an isometric engine with fallshadows maybe he wants some help. People here are much more friendly than on other places. More examples; a scaleable tile-engine (zoom) with camera. Spline/spriter support, the files are asci they can be parsed with fusion.
