When to use displacement and when to use bump maps.

[somlor]

Well I guess it depends on your renderer's implementation of displacement. An RMan compliant renderer takes little to no hit in speed doing true displacement. But, for example, Maya has to tesselate your geometry before doing displacement so it takes the hit.

So besides speed, your biggest questions are, how much are you trying to distory your geometry via maps, will the mesh be visible close up, will you need displacements visible from the side/sillhouette.

Radical distortions of geometry that will be viewed close up, and/or from the side will need displacement to look right. You can't do this, for example, with bump maps: http://cmpa.ca.scad.edu/faculty/kesson/Ca301/wip/best_fall2001/ca301.4/stephen_kody/project1.htm

Sean.

[Kabab]

ahh k i always thought along thoes lines just makes it nice and clear for me now.

Thoes rocks are mega cool i'll have to give it a go.

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