Simple question about normalising...

Hey,

When you normalise a 3d vertex/vector you make sure it is within the range of 0-1 (or -1)...

Is this basically to turn it from a position in 3d space to a direction? im trying to understand alot more about 3d maths and things, its easy enough to copy code and vaugley understand what its doing and why its doing it... but i wanted to try to make sure my understanding was correct...

You have the basic idea.

Though I don't usually see uses for length of -1, just 1.

With a length of one, certain operations for which a normal is used ( dot products for example ) make more sense for their context, as in 1 * 1 = 1.

That's not a deep explanation as to why it's done, just an intuitive point.