How to generate heightmaps with render to texture?

motives

well, hmm the subject says it all.. I want to try and get some parallax effects going but i got shut down at the heightmap.. I cant get this to work All that i get from the bake is a completely white map.

what i wanna do is render out a heightmap from my highpoly object togheter with the normalmap rather than having to paint it myself. Tought this would be simple enough with projection modifier but i seem to be wrong..

Rhinokey

ok,, use projection mapping,, set up your cage all nice,, coose heightmpat , then render,, this is just a test render,, after its done open up options on the projection pannel see at the bottom,, the min max buffer numbers on the right,, well use these values, and enter them in on the left side,, now re render.. it worked for me,,

motives

yuzz mojo! Wanna have children?

Rhinokey

so that worked for ya?

motives

yup worked like a charm. Funny how nothing was said about it in the documentation. Doesnt seem too obvious to me to just figure it out... But then again im kinda slow.

MoP

I'm pretty sure there's an option when rendering a normal map, there's a checkbox somewhere (maybe in the file save dialog?) which says "Render heightmap to alpha channel" ... that's how I've always done it.

motives

ahh yea your right mop.. I missed it since i had my mind set on doing it in two steps! As i said, kinda slow

atleast i now have 2 ways of doing it! tnxs again guys