CGMatter shows how to make pin art using depth maps to drive displacement.

There are a few ways that you can make a pin art effect in 3D. You could create and translate each pin driven by some mechanism, or you could create the whole thing with a displacement. CGMatter runs us through the process in Blender using a depth map to drive the displacement effect.

There are all kinds of tips that rush by in the tutorial, but one of them stands out. CGMatter shows how you can make a depth map from any 3D object in Blender using the compositing workspace. It’s a quick way to get a working depth map for this effect.