Quote - I think Luke meant that displacement doesn't permanently move the mesh (in a way a magnet or a morph brush would).

In 3DS Max and few other high end programs there is Shader based Displacement, like what you get in Poser. Then there's also displacement based modifiers that can be used in mesh modeling. Those actually do change the mesh, in a way a magnet or a morph would in Poser.

 
Why would you think Luke meant that?

He never talked about permanence, nor did I.

He already acknowledged that his explanation of how it works was incorrect, because he was talking about moving the pixels, not the polygons, and called it an illusion. The polygons actually move. Yes, only during the render, and only if you enable displacement in render settings, but they do move during the render.

A magnet, morph or displacement do the same thing. Sure at different times during the process, and using a different control mechanism, but the magnet or morph isn't permanent either.

I understand other apps can deform a mesh at modeling time, not just render time. Be that as it may, his opening statement had nothing to do with 3DS Max. He said:

"Displacement mapping in Poser does NOT alter the mesh (yes I know it says it does in the reference manual but it really doesn’t). Displacement mapping creates the illusion that the surface of the mesh is being displaced. "

Things can work differently in other apps, but the Poser manual is correct and the claim that the manual is wrong is bogus. The claim that displacement mapping creates the illusion that the surface of the mesh is being displaced is incorrect. It's not an illusion, it moves. It's illogical to interpret those words as having something to do with permanence.

In casual conversation with follow up we can be fuzzy about what we say, and clarify. But we can't start a tutorial with a blatant falsehood, regardless of whether or not there are ways to stretch the interpretation to sort-of be meaningful.

Also, if Poser were able to evaluate displacement fast enough, you'd actually see it in preview as well as at modeling/posing time. The only reason you don't is because it would be very slow. The magnet and morph techniques can be done at posing time because they are fast. If displacement were fast, Poser would also do it at posing time. That would be consistent with the other recent improvements in posing time preview, such as the real-time rendering of some more material effects with hardware acceleration.

As soon as hardware can do displacement in real time, they'll add it.

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