1. In an animation processing system, having a display or capability to output a display, a processor and memory, a method of generating vector displacement maps, wherein a vector displacement represents displacement of points or regions of an object being processed by the animation processing system, the method comprising: identifying objects to be processed, wherein objects are represented by data structures; identifying a plurality of faces of the objects to be processed; subdividing the plurality of faces into polygons that at least approximate the plurality of faces and are more numerous than the number of faces; accepting vector displacement information; maintaining source data indicating a correspondence between displaced and undisplaced polygon for faces of a subdivided surface, where the source data indicates an original location on the original object that corresponds to that face and the polygons resulting from the subdividing; and storing the vector displacement information associated with the plurality of faces and the source data linking polygons to locations on faces, thereby providing information linking polygons to original locations on the faces.