I'm wondering if anyone can help me figure this out. I've been hacking at it for months and it seems like it might be a bug? If it is, I can't find any evidence of it being discussed by others. I'm using Houdini 17.5 on Ubuntu (for sysadmin reasons I'm not upgraded to 18).

I'm bringing in a bgeo file that is a simple sphere cut-out with no normals, and I apply normals in a variety of ways (wrangle, normal node, facet node), and when I render displacement with P and N connected I get this. Notice the crunchy hard edges and totally unlit sides.



However, if I don't create normals on the geometry, and I don't attach the global P and N to my displacement node, I get this lovely smooth look.



Here's a look at my object and shader networks



I'm nervous about not being able to manipulate normals in the geometry though. Does anyone know if I'm doing something I shouldn't be or if this is a known bug?

Thanks!