Bake PERFECT Displacement Maps (with blender)
Why Blender Stack Exchange recommends it
Blender Stack Exchange answerers and commenters point people to it when someone needs to turn existing geometry into a height or displacement map, or wants to understand how displacement baking works.
Recommended by 5 people across 5 different months, 2020 to 2025.
What it is
A roughly 16-minute Blender tutorial by CGMatter (channel Default Cube) on baking height/displacement maps from existing 3D geometry. It walks through using an orthographic camera and an emission-based height shader, then using the resulting image as a displacement map.
What people said
Recommends moonboots · 2020-08 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “How to render height map in Blender?”
I don't know the method you're using, here is one that seems to work and that is close to the one explained here [this video] by CGMatter as linked by @NascentSpace: Create the 3D object you want to bake, put an Orthographic camera over it, give your object the following node setup: Texture Coordinate (Generated Output) > Separate XYZ > ColorRamp (if you need to tweak the highest and lowest) > Emission > Material Output : [LINK] [LINK] In the Render panel, choose a good Sampling resolution. In the Output panel choose OpenEXR as File Format , otherwise you'll have artifacts. Keep the other settings as they are and render the image. [LINK] [LINK] Create a plane, subdivide it, give it a new material
Recommends MA Jacob · 2020-10 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “Problem with Image Texture using Bump and Displacement (Cycle Render)”
The displacement is happening in all XYZ. Add a 'Displacement' node after the texture should be fixed. [this video]
Recommends Gordon Brinkmann · 2020-11 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “Why is my displacement map virtually completely grey?”
But the DetailedCup object is not generated through displacement, it's a different geometry. That's not how baking displacement maps (from a displaced mesh) works. What you want to do is create a height map of existing geometry to use it as a displacement map. Here's a video tutorial [this video] about it, for example. But to do that, the height is measured by distance to camera so to project it onto your UV map you would have to place the object's geometry flat on the ground in the shape of the UV map.
Recommends Terg Turry · 2022-03 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “How to make mesh follow the shape of the ground plane”
You can bake Displacement from terrane and apply Displace Modifier on your wall. Bake Displacement by set up shader to present highest and lowest point, black as lowest and white as highest. You can Greater/Lesser Than in Math node to find highest-lowest point then use that value in Map Range node in Min/Max. Then bake as Emit. [LINK] Find highest point with Math node (left). Ready to bake (right). Image after bake (top-right) Create new UVMap for use with Displace Modifier . Unwarp your model from top ( numpad7 ) select Project from View . Then create new Shader with this UVmap and image from baking, align UVmap to match with terrane on back. [LINK] Align UVmap to match black/white on terra
Recommends Jacco · 2025-05 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “How to extract DEM (Digital Elevation Model) from 3D model”
What is called a DEM in GIS, is called a Displacement Map in 3D modelling. DefaultCube did a good YouTube video on the subject: Bake PERFECT Displacement Maps (with blender) [this video] .
Cites Samawat Ahsan · 2020-06 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “How to properly use displacement node in blender?”
[LINK] Every time I insert a displacement map in shader node (I plugged in to the height socket and used scale) I only get the flat surface texture , there is no displacement texture to the mesh I'm applying it too. But when i use dispalcement modifier and use the same map it works just fine , so the problem isn't with the map itself. I tried following the tutorial below but the issue remains. [this video]
Cites mavigozludev · 2020-06 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “image to displacement maps”
i want a real displacement not fake one. like this [this video] fake displacement maps will cause problem when i start animation like rolling or falling coins with different light sourse.
Cites ilyak · 2022-10 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “How to generate height map from/for complex surface”
This is what I'm trying to get procedurally via shading nodes: [LINK] This model is for reference. I want the peaks to be white and lows to be black so that I could bake Emit and get a heightmap. Edit (copied from comments of deleted answer) Mostly for Displacement is used bake from flat surface [this video] (Linear Gradient texture or by Normal Z", but it seems to work only with flat surfaces. I thought there is a method to apply a gradient in Object Space, but it seems to work only in World Space. As for the Bake Displacement from Multires [LINK] method - fine details must be sculpted. What if I'm not going to use sculpting in my case, where hires features are made using a combination of mesh t