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Now people - this is what matters. I've been showing you that the claims made about "better" results were bullshit. You guys can't even tell which is the normal map and which is the bump map.

But when I use the bump map in the displacement channel, you get something the other two can't do.

And on top of that, as Vilters is demonstrating, you can MANIPULATE a height map, whether procedural or image based, and you can mix it with other height maps on the fly. You can modulate it. You can use it to modulate color as well. Or as Vilters shows, use color to modulate height.

This is a level of control, power, and ease of use that you do not get with a normal map. These things TRUMP all the other advantages of a normal map.

Hm, i always thought that this being the strongest point in favour of normal maps; people cannot manipulate, be wrong about the scale or require you to guess the scale of normal maps. Or the offset, just count how often the question about the offset of a displacement map pops up. So it depends on what you actually want to have. If you measure the benefits of a bumpmap on how easily it can be used as a height/displacement map, a bumpmap clearly wins over a normal map. Different kind of perception, i think :-)