Shadows & Displaced Geometry

Created Aug 22, 2026 · Updated Aug 22, 2026

The main directional light casts real-time mapped shadows, so forms read with the depth cues an engine will actually give them — an arm shades the torso, a panel line sits in its own occlusion — instead of the shadowless float that makes viewport renders look like toys.

A model with a painted displacement map physically raising its surface, lit so the displaced geometry casts a real directional-light shadow onto the rest of the mesh — Painted displacement raising real geometry — and that geometry casting a real shadow.

Displacement moves real geometry

A displacement map in Vertexix is not a shading trick: the map is sampled in the vertex shader and physically offsets each vertex along its normal — mid-grey leaves the surface alone, white pushes it out, black pulls it in. Because the offset is real geometry, displaced detail changes the silhouette, receives shadows correctly, and casts its own shadow back onto the rest of the mesh.

Painting displacement live

Create a displacement map from the Extra Actions accordion (Create Displacement Map starts one at neutral mid-grey), then paint into it with the Paint mode's Displacement channel — the surface rises and falls under the brush as you paint, shadows updating with it. The effect shows in both the OpenGL and PBR render modes.