Does vrayDisplacement add a bump map effect?

[dgruwier]

Even if I set edge length to 10000 and max subdivs to 0, I get no geometry displacement on my mesh, but I still somehow get super fine bump-like detail. Does vrayDisplacement have some kind of bump effect that is independent of the subdivision of the mesh, like Arnolds autobump feature? How do I turn it off? I couldn't find anything about this on the forums or in the documentation.

[yolov]

There shouldn't be such an effect from the displacement. Could you post some screenshots? You could also try adding a Normals and BumpNormals render element and check it with displacement enabled and disabled - Normals will contain any changes to the actual geometry made by proper displacement, BumpNormals will contain any changes to the geometric normals from bump-mapping.

[vlado]

Does vrayDisplacement have some kind of bump effect that is independent of the subdivision of the mesh, like Arnolds autobump feature?

Yes, it does compute bump out of the displacement.

How do I turn it off? I couldn't find anything about this on the forums or in the documentation.

Enable the "Cache normals" option in the V-Ray displacement control attributes.

Best regards,
Vlado

[dgruwier]

Thanks Vlado! That's a very cool feature, although even knowing what to look for, the (otherwise immaculate) documentation is very unclear about Cache normals and what it does in practice . Debugging subdivisions and edge length is more difficult with it disabled.