[RESOLVED] Displacement: Best Practices

When is it appropriate to use displacement, and when is it not - for performance reasons?

Is the ultimate criteria essentially viewing distance? For example, a close-up shot of a plaster wall would reveal subtle, but obvious surface bump, but that same wall viewed at several meters away, the surface bump would be imperceptible.

However, in the interest of being physically accurate, it occurs to me to include displacement regardless. For compute reasons, this is obviously not tenable in many situations. Just curious if I can get a word from the professionals. Thanks :smiley:

Corona’s displacement is adaptive, so usually you don’t have to worry about how far the wall is from the camera - Corona will take care of that. If you have enough RAM, then you can just apply displacement and leave it there for all shots.

Here is some basic info about displacement vs RAM:
https://coronarenderer.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/12000023310

My advice would be: use displacement only when really needed, and for larger features. Let bump take care of the rest.

Beauty, thank you so much :smiley: