" As I understand it a normal map gives tighter control than a bump map. A bump map wraps a displaced surface around the original poys." This might help: "Normal mapping is a method where by the normals of a mesh are given more detailed lighting information by means of a bitmap image. This give the mesh the appearance of more realistic lighting and more surface detail. Normal maps are encoded to a bitmap image, much like a greyscale bump map. The way in which they differ however is that in traditional bump mapping only distinct changes in elevation are registered. A gradual change in height is almost impossible to perceive. Normal maps not only describe height, but accurately depict the angle of faces and are able to describe curves and complex angles much more accurately. In short, they create a much better illusion of height. Normal maps are encoded in RGB values which are used to indicate which direction the normal faces relative to the face of the polygon it is mapped to. The red channel describes normal facing in the X direction. 100% red means it is facing right 0% red means it is facing left. A 50% value means it is facing straight out in the direction of the polygon." http://www.ionization.net/tutsnorm1.htm Just to be clear, bump mapping and normal mapping don't actually displace the mesh like, for instance, sub-poly displacement does.

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Tools :  3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender v2.74

System: Pentium QuadCore i7, under Win 8, GeForce GTX 780 / 2GB GPU.