Quote - BB, while we are on (sort of) the subject, have you ever found any evidence that using the new poser pro normal mapping is any better then displacement?

No. I got into several little fights with people about this. Several times, somebody makes the claim that normal maps render faster, or are more detailed, or more accurate, or some other measure of superiority that I have never verified.

Every time we got to the point of me saying "Look - stop making unsubstantiated claims. Produce - using any tool you like - a matching set of bump map and normal map. Use both in a render. Show me the render, and show me the render time differences."

Every time I have said this, the thread would end. Nobody would ever come back and answer. I take that to mean that they were just making stuff up or repeating stuff they heard, and had no actual proof.

On the other hand, I have demonstrated that a normal map, by its nature, does not let you adjust the intensity of the bump effect the way you can so easily do with a bump map. Furthermore, I have demonstrated several times that Poser Pro has a serious BUG with normal maps that make them useless.

All of the specular effects IGNORE THE NORMAL MAP. Some developer forgot to add the support for normal maps into the specular functions. Only the diffuse functions pay any attention to normal maps.

In my opinion, this makes them utterly useless. While there is some importance to the direction of surface normal in diffuse reflections, the primary impact is on specular reflections. Poser Pro's failure to include the normal map in specular reflection calculations means you just shouldn't use them at all.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)