With the GrowthNodes Addon we can iteratively displace real geometry. This unlike some trendy shaders, and Cycles with adaptive subdivision that not affect the geometry in the scene. It is also different than just a displacement modifier which displaces the geometry in only one axis, usually z-axis. In fact, the addon put several displacement modifiers on top of each other and apply them as shapekeys. Next, you switch Relative off in the Shapekeys Panel. That way it plays through shapes as a squence using the evaluation time. A problem though, is that there will be intersection of the geometry, but you can stronly reduce that with the Corrective Smooth Modifier.
An update after a discussion on Twitter. While you can displace with vector displacement, the GrowthNodes addon works with real geometry and the vector displacement not. And while you can have as good as the same effect by stacking displacement modifiers manually, the addon will do that for you. Which is pretty handy if you have 120 frames (meaning 120 displacement modifiers). On top of that, what I show here is just the basics and the addon provides more nodes than I show in this article.
It’s actually not that difficult and once you know the steps, it’s done fairly quick. Here a basic setup:
You can download the addon on Github and it will install as usual. Meaning you can press the green button, download .zip. And then in Blender you go to Edit > Preferences > Addons and navigate to the .zip file you just downloaded.