

For this, I’ll add a Subdivision Surface modifier and place it above the Displace. While the height looks good, it still looks way too low resolution for me. Go back to the Displace modifier and play with the Strength and Midlevel parameters until you get a look that you’re happy with. Now, my mesh has some depth to it-low poly and overly high depth, but depth nonetheless.
#ADDING 3D TO A PHOTO BLENDER MOVIE#
I’ll set the Type to Image or Movie in the Texture properties tab and then open up the heightmap. I’ll click on the New button to add a unique texture. Next, I’ll navigate the Modifier tab and add a new Displace modifier to the plane. It’s time to displace this bad boy with my heightmap. Voila, directly my image is placed on the plane mesh. Now, I can navigate and open up my map image. I’ll select the circle next to Base Color and grab Image Texture. With my mesh ready to go, I’ll switch back to Object mode and then change the display mode to Material Preview.įirst I’ll go to the Material Properties tab with the plane selected and create a new material. Depending on your system, you’ll want to play with this number. The more I subdivide, the higher the resolution, but the slower the performance. The problem here is that it’s a balance of performance vs. Subdividing the mesh adds more vertices, which will give me a more detailed terrain map. I’ll type in 50 for the Number of Cuts in the Subdivide panel at the bottom-left. Next, I’ll switch to Edit mode and right+click > Subdivide the plane. With my map data downloaded and cleaned up, I’m ready to jump into Blender.įirst, I’ll delete the default cube and create a new Mesh > Plane. They need to fit when compositing the two elements in Blender. The critical thing to remember is not to change the size of either image. I can see some clouds and tiling, which can easily be removed in Photoshop. I also want to clean up the edges of the coastline of my map image because the satellite imagery is just a little rough around the edges. My height map has some black spots that need patching and cropping out some of the surrounding islands.Īgain, Blender will be using the luminance values of my heightmap to control the displacement, so it’s essential to fix up any problem areas.

Once downloaded, my heightmap and map image need a little touching up. Unfortunately, you can only select a maximum area of 70km.
#ADDING 3D TO A PHOTO BLENDER DOWNLOAD#
It allows you to download the heightmap and the corresponding map image easily. This site was built to generate heightmaps for a game called Cities: Skylines. I found this tool on GitHub to be the most user-friendly for us non-geography folk.

However, many of these sites are overly technical, requiring knowledge of satellite names and confusing geography terms to find the imagery you want. The problem is finding these heightmaps.ĭepending on the location, you can find map data from various places. Once in Blender, I can use the luminance values of my heightmap to drive the vertical displacement of my terrain. I’m specifically looking for a grayscale heightmap. While I recommend watching the video as it’s laid out in a step-by-step follow-along process, you can find the abbreviated steps below for a quick recap of the tutorial, if you get stuck.įor the first step, I need to get some real-world map data.
