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  • Published 5 Jul 2025

Consistency between Bump and Displacement nodes

nodes.png When you think about it, Bump and Displacement are pretty much the same concept with different execution for different purposes. So I think they should be made more consistent with each other.

Parameter Ordering:

On Displacement Height is at the top, and on Bump it's at the bottom. And while it's most likely because on Displacement Height can be edited on the node (which makes sense since on Bump a flat value would make no difference), it makes it so if you search "Bump" while adding a link it'll annoyingly automatically plug it into the Strength input, so it would be nice if Height was the first input on Bump for this convenience.

Naming:

Distance on the Bump node and Scale on the Displacement node both function the same, being a multiplier on Height . So they should be named the same, for which i'd choose Scale since I think it better describes what the parameter does and is for.

Exclusive Features:

  • Displacement - Space : Space determines if Height is in Object Space or World Space. Bump node Height is always in World Space. Bump node could have this parameter added and both nodes should default to the same one (preferably World Space?).
  • Bump - Invert : Multiplies Distance by -1.0 (based on the source code). I don't see why one should have it but not the other.
  • Displacement - Midlevel : Non applicable, would not affect Bump whatsoever.

Displacement generates bump too:

When the displacement mode is set to Bump Only or Displacement and Bump (EEVEE does not support Displacement Only so it falls back to Displacement and Bump), the Displacement Node will also generate a normal map to use, so Strength (which I think should be removed altogether from the Bump node) and Filter Width (which is hardcoded to 0.1 on Displacement) could be made into editable parameters on the bump generated from displacement.

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Development Status: Open

Upvote 2 Downvote 0
Zaki
5 Jul 2025

1 Comment

Bill-Spitzak

It does look like the "Displacement" node has the ability to convert normals back into Displacement, in which case these are not identical. But absolutely agree that they should use the exact same set of controls