Hello.  I’ve got a pretty basic question: which bump method is the best?  By best I mean, which one gets a decent result and renders the quickest? I’m setting up a rendering pipeline and I’m looking for the most optimized option.  From what I know of the Rendertree, there are 5 options;

1) turn on bumpmapping in an image node so that it’s passed through with the color
2) the bumpmap node
3) the bumpmap-generator node
4) ImageImport -> color2vector -> Material bump-map input
5) normal map

The Bumpmap node is more predictable, this is what you should use for bumpmaps.

Normal map is what you will need for normal maps. lol

You can put those nodes together, like a bumpmap after another.
Or even put normal maps and bumpmaps together in a network.

usually what I do is comp everything that I need to bump, and plug into the bumpmap node.
Then plug this node in the bump input of the material.
This way you keep it open to switch the surface without loose the bump setup (like put an occlusion override in a pass).

I don’t use the bumpmap option on the image node.. Prefer to have the control separate and the bumpmap option in the image node looks like a simplified version of a bumpmap.
It can get pretty hard to keep track of what is bumping and what is not bumping if you start to spread bumpmaps on your network.