Blender/Cycles - Baking The Perfect Displacement Map Tutorial! (Microdisplacement Blender 2.78/2.79)
Why Blender Stack Exchange recommends it
Blender Stack Exchange answerers point people to it when they need to bake high-res detail or procedural displacement into a map for a low-poly mesh.
Recommended by 3 people across 3 different months, 2017 to 2019.
What it is
A 26-minute Blender tutorial by nutelZ on baking displacement maps from a high-resolution model, using Cycles and the experimental microdisplacement feature in Blender 2.78/2.79. It walks through producing a displacement map that can be applied to a low-poly mesh.
What people said
Recommends WolfiG · 2017-10 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “How to fix the sinking area surface after decimate?”
Another approach would be to bake your high-res model to a displacement map which you apply to a low-res mesh afterwards. I found a video tutorial how to do that: [this video]
Recommends kim holder · 2018-06 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “Why is this procedural displacement texture not showing up on render?”
The step I've been missing for using true displacement is baking it so the polygon count doesn't make it impractical except for maybe rendered images. I didn't think it was possible to bake it. I've found this tutorial video [this video] and i'm trying to adapt it now.
Recommends Grimlock · 2019-01 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “Game modelling how to get height details?”
Sorry for the delay, but what you're looking for is displacement maps. Here's a video on how to do this: [this video] however, it is specifically for sculpting, but you may be able to use the same methods in your model
Cites kim holder · 2018-06 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “How to bake an adaptive displacement to a Blender Render displacement map”
Blender had the experimental feature set enabled, and the scene has an object with a subsurf modifier set to 4 levels. Its material has an image texture plugged into its displacement socket. [LINK] A copy of that object with its origin in the same place is on another layer, with the material removed, and given a Blender Render material. It is properly UV unwrapped to take the displacement on the first object as a displacement map. I used the technique in this answer [LINK] for that, as it is perfect for maps of a world. It has just enough faces to serve as the base geometry for that map. [LINK] When I click bake, it produces this smooth gradient: [LINK] The method is taken from this tutorial