Height mode in the Displacement shader module displaces a mesh’s vertices along their surface normals based on grayscale values provided by the Height map input.
Bright values push vertices outward, while dark values pull them inward, creating actual geometric displacement. This is useful for adding depth to surfaces such as terrain, stone carvings, or embossed patterns.
The quality of the displacement depends on mesh polygon density. Higher polygon counts allow more accurate representation of height detail. For low-poly meshes, consider using Normal Maps or Parallax Occlusion as alternatives to achieve a similar effect at lower cost.
You can generate or apply height maps in several ways:
- Bake Projects in Toolbag: Bake height data from a high-resolution source model.
- Texture Projects in Toolbag: Paint or procedurally generate height data.
- Toolbag Library: Use pre-made height textures
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Displacement Map Texture Slot | Add a height map by clicking on the slot, or dragging and dropping a map onto the material slot from the Library. |
| Channel | Determines which channel of the texture map will be used. It’s useful when, instead of multiple single textures, you use one texture with different grayscale maps in the different texture channels: Red, Green, Blue, and Alpha. |
| Scale | Sets the intensity of the displacement effect. |
| Scale Center | Sets the displacement map’s gray point, zero point, or “no-displacement” point. Values in the displacement map below this threshold will be displaced inwards, while values greater than this will be displaced outward. |
| Contrast | Adjust the contrast of the height map. It can be useful to increase the difference between the lowest and highest values. |
| Contrast Center | Adjust the value used for the contrast center of the height map. This setting determines, based on which value changes the contrast of the texture. |
| Offset | Offset the map contents. This setting can be useful for fine-tuning. |
| Generate Normals | Sets the intensity of the displacement effect. |
| Scale Center | Sets the displacement map’s gray point, zero point, or “no-displacement” point. Values in the displacement map below this threshold will be displaced inwards, while values greater than this will be displaced outward. |
| Generate Normals | Generate fresh surface normals using the displaced vertices. |
| Relative Scale | Sets whether the displacement map is applied relative to the bounding box scale. If disabled, absolute scale in scene units is used. |
