Quote - Quick technical question for (probably) Paolo.  For Reality's purposes..what's better to use, Bump maps or displacement maps?

Displacement maps actually alter the geometry of the model, and I think they do so inacurrately and unpredictably. In my opinion they are overused in DAZ/Poser models. Perhaps because, it seems, there is very little penalty when rendering in their built-in rendering systems. In contrast, you would not use them in games because they would unnecessarily hog resources which are much more valuable when the models are animated. Normal maps are the standard in games and they work very well there.

In Reality/Luxrender I think it's somewhere in between, but in most cases bump or normal maps are preferable to me. To use displacement maps you will need to increase the subdivision of the mesh, which takes up more memory. This should hardly be necessary for small variations in the surface so it's wasteful to use them casually for small displacement that can be done very well with bump or normal maps. I think you would need to have some whacking great veins, for example, to justify displacement, but in commercial models aimed at Poser and DAZ displacement is used quite casually for things like this. I always delete them for body textures because I think they are more trouble than they are worth.

If I am creating my own maps, I go for normal maps every time. Paulo's well-known render with the breast plate shows how effective they can be, although I think you need a decent program to generate them.

Still, perhaps I just being too purist. If you have the memory and existing displacement maps work for you and it's easier then you should use them. The end result is all that matters.