Thanks for the replies and feedback!
@PavelBoytchev @vielzutun.ch Yes i agree, the wheel rotation and floor speed are not realistic. A driven wheel actually has some slippage but the slippage in the example is exaggerated; in any case, i’m referring to the visual illusion of movement. I’d like to fool the eye that the model is moving around in an infinite space even though the model is actually stationary. You can find another example of this effect here
@phil_crowther I had loads of fun flying around in your examples! The “scrolling maps” follow the same principle that i’m aiming for. @Fennec That website is very well done, and the section you shared creates exactly the effect im looking for. From what I understand, in both examples the subject (plane or horse) is above a tiled texture that scrolls infinitely.
Id like to create this effect but for a tiled normal map applied on a single plane. Also, i’d like to keep the normal map visible only in the vicinity of the subject and have the tiled normal maps translate and rotate based on the subject’s speed and direction of travel. (check the attached image)
I understand how to achieve some of these requirements but not all. I can load a normal map to plane using THREE.TextureLoader and tile it using THREE.RepeatWrapping, but im not sure how to translate (“scroll”) and rotate it, as well as fade it out. Im trying to understand if this would solve the translation and rotation issue, but i still have no idea how to fade out of the normal map.
@PavelBoytchev here’s another illustration 
