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How is displacement used in real time in Blender?
Since displacement needs a lot of geometry it is also heavy on performance. Therefore, you don’t see displacement maps used as often for real-time applications or games. In Blender, we have two different ways we can use displacement. The first one is through the displacement modifier.
Is it possible to use displacement as bump mapping?
It is also possible to use the displacement as bump mapping only by changing the material settings, so that no high resolution mesh is needed. Distance to displace the surface along the normal.
When to use displacement instead of normal map?
But displacement also requires a lot of geometry to be able to displace enough to create the detail. Therefore, if the detail we want to create is too small we may be better of using a normal map instead.
How do you add displacement to an object?
With the object we want to add displacement to selected we go to the modifier tab in the properties panel. In the drop-down menu we select “displacement”. Keep in mind that as we work with the displacement modifer the object may take on very odd shapes, like being heavily inflated or become much larger or smaller.
Why does bump mapping cause artifacts in Blender?
Because bump mapping is a fake effect, it can cause artifacts if the actual shape of the geometry is too different from the bump mapped shape. If this happens the strength of bump mapping should be reduced or actual displacement should be used.
Which is better baked displacement or bump displacement?
For baked displacement maps, best results are achieved with 16 or 32-bit float maps, as 8-bit images often can not represent all the necessary detail. Both methods can be combined to use actual displacement for the bigger displacement and bump for the finer details. This can provide a good balance to reduce memory usage.