Bump Map Study with a Genesis 9 Character

Here's a little study about the importance of bump maps in your character renders, shown here with a Genesis 9 figure (using the Angela skin shader).

By default most Genesis 9 figures use the detail channel with normal maps that are already applied in the regular normals location, so there’s really no point or added benefit. Where the detail bump channel shines is in adding different detail on top of the normal maps, and vary it up depending on how far away your subject is from the camera. Here I'm using a simple 600x600px noise texture that I've made in Photoshop to illustrate the effect.

One of the big secrets is that there’s no “one bump map setting for every shot”. The same map/size setting can look awful in a close-up, but fantastic in a wide shot. Likewise, something that looks great in a close-up is not even noticeable in a wide or medium shot. You could apply the same map in the roughness channel to add even more detail variation. The big take-away here is that it depends on how large your image is going to be viewed to pick the correct setting. This is one of those situations where one value is not right for every shot.