What is Displacement Mapping?

In displacement mapping the surface is actually modified, in contrast to bump mapping where only the surface Normal is modified. Displacement mapping allows a texture input, either proceedural, or an image to manipulate the position of rendered faces.

Unlike Normal or Bump mapping, where the Normals are skewed to give an illusion of a bump, this creates real bumps. They cast shadows, occlude other objects, and do everything real geometry can do.

Displacement maps are similar to texture maps but are accessed by the vertex engine. An additional sampler stage is present in the early part of the vertex pipe, which can sample a displacement map to provide vertex displacement data. The following block diagram explains the inner workings of how displacement mapping is done.

zip. diag needed

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