Reply To: no result on displacement map

[Kent Trammell]

Sorry I’m catching up late to this conversation. I’ve spent the past hour troubleshooting these issues. First I can confirm what you both are experiencing with regards to odd bakes (dark spots that are obviously wrong) and plain gray bakes at resolutions above 1024×1024.

First, I think I can offer a solution to the odd baking. I kept getting a large black spot on the shoulder, no explanation why. Face normals were fine, no visible issue with the mesh itself. But a reliable method I use for “resetting a mesh” that’s acting funny: Export as .OBJ and then import. Exporting as a new mesh format and bringing it back into the scene serves to reset or refresh the mesh in my experience. Here’s how to do it:

1. Select your object and set multires viewport level to highest (max detail).
2. File > Export > Wavefront (.obj) and check “selection only” in the include section, make sure “apply modifiers” and “include UVs” are checked in the geometry section.
3. Export your model (this will take several minutes for million-poly meshes; 2 GB file in your model’s case)
4. Import your model (this will also take several minutes; blender will appear to be frozen). You can import into a fresh blender scene (for baking maps only) or into the same scene you exported from.
5. Once import finishes, add a multires modifier and rebuild subdivisions (this will also take several minutes).
6. Now you’re ready to setup baking again. Bakes were much better for me after export/import.

HOWEVER I cannot get your model to bake at 4K resolution and I have no idea why. It bakes great at 1024×1024 but nothing above that (not even 1050×1050). I’ve tried in Blende 3.4, 3.3 and even 2.93. I’ve never seen this before and I’m baffled…hard not to think it’s a glitch of some kind…