Quest, In some apps in may not be a permanent deformation though, which makes it no different to a bump map it's just dynamic application of a height field. (Truspace used to do it this way) If you actually wanted to make a mesh change you needed to apply a displacement map and then specifically make it a permanent mesh change. The displacement map modifier without making it permanent was identical to a bump map.

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Toolset: Blender, GIMP, Indigo Render, LuxRender, TopMod, Knotplot, Ivy Gen, Plant Studio.