Normalizing RGB to 0.0–1.0 decouples color description from bit-depth encoding

RGB values are often stored as integers 0–255 (8-bit) or hex codes. Dividing by 255.0 produces a normalized float in [0,1] that represents the fraction of maximum channel intensity, independent of the storage format. Shaders universally use this 0.0–1.0 convention; hardware texture samplers return it. Understanding normalization prevents off-by-one errors when converting between integer palettes and shader code, and makes color math (mixing, scaling) straightforward linear arithmetic.

Examples

255, 230, 26 → 1.000, 0.902, 0.102 (divide each by 255.0). In GLSL: vec3 col = vec3(255.0, 230.0, 26.0) / 255.0;

Assessment

Convert hex color #FF6B35 to normalized RGB floats; then explain why shaders prefer the float form.