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What is the correct way to control the strength of the bump node?
What does the Distance Input on the bump node in cycles do?
The manual does not make it clear.

Distance Input
Multiplier for the height value to control the overall distance for bump mapping.

So if the Distance Input is meant be used to control the depth or strength of the displacement, then what does the setting the Strength setting above 1 do?

David
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1 Answers1

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Height input is where you plug in the texture. Distance input is the "height" of the tallest bump in blender units. Strength input is an overall scale of the height map.

It's not normally useful to use strength, unless you want to plug the same bump map into different shaders, and some have the same features yet less bump height.

beiller
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    Still don't understand the difference between height and strength. Some renders might help, but it seems you could achieve the exact same result changing either setting at least as described, so it feels totally redundant to me. The way every one describes them just sounds to me like two different ways of saying the exact same thing. – Sean Robertson Oct 10 '20 at 10:44