What it does
Pushes the image around using another layer as a map: bright and dark areas offset the pixels for heat-haze, glass, and melt looks.
The powerful idea in displacement is the separation of the field from the applier. The effect itself does no drawing; it only moves pixels by whatever the map tells it, which means anything that can make an image can steer a distortion. A gradient becomes a smooth directional sweep, noise becomes shimmer, a photograph of rippled glass becomes rippled glass. The convention, shared by After Effects and every compositor since, is that middle gray is rest: the map is read as a signed quantity around its midpoint, so one map can push in both directions at once.
What makes a map good is its gradients, not its content. Displacement shifts pixels by the map’s value, so smooth transitions in the map produce smooth stretching, and hard edges in the map produce tears, where two neighboring pixels are sent to very different places. Blurring a map is the single most useful thing you can do to it: the same map goes from shattered to liquid. Beyond a single brightness channel, a two-channel map can steer the axes independently, one channel driving horizontal and another vertical, which turns displacement into a true vector field. And the map can be the image itself, brightness dragging its own pixels, which is where slumping, melting looks come from.
Displaced pixels have to come from somewhere, and the frame edge is where that question gets interesting: the content can hold its edge pixels and smear, tile around, mirror back in, or simply give way to transparency. On video the whole system comes alive, because the map is read fresh every frame. Drift a noise field and the image shimmers like air over asphalt; slide a gradient and a wave rolls through the frame; drive footage with animated footage and the distortion becomes choreography.
Signature looks
Heat shimmer
Soft drifting noise as the map, small offsets, the air-over-a-highway wobble that makes a static shot feel hot.
Shower glass
A ripple texture pushing pixels in tight waves, edges refracting like reeded or pebbled glass between viewer and subject.
Luminance melt
The image displaced by its own brightness, highlights dragging their pixels until the picture slumps like warm film.
Try it on your own footage
This effect runs live in the Modulate editor, with layers, effect chains, masks, and keyframes. Free, no signup, nothing to install.
Common questions
What is a displacement map?
It is an image used as a set of instructions for moving the pixels of another image. The effect samples the map at each position and offsets the corresponding pixel by the value it reads, with brightness above the midpoint pushing one direction and below it the other. The result distorts the picture using nothing but a second picture.
Is this the same as displacement mapping in 3D?
Same grammar, different target. In 3D rendering a displacement map pushes actual geometry outward along the surface, so the silhouette of a model changes. In 2D compositing it moves pixels within the frame instead. Both read a grayscale image as height or offset, which is why the term covers both, but this page is about the 2D compositing effect.
What does middle gray mean in a displacement map?
It is the zero point. Displacement is signed, so the map’s midpoint value produces no shift, brighter values push pixels in one direction, and darker values push them the opposite way. That is why neutral gray maps leave an image untouched and why hand-made maps are usually painted around middle gray.
What makes a good displacement map?
Smooth gradients. The distortion follows the map’s transitions, so gentle ramps stretch the image gracefully while hard edges tear it, sending adjacent pixels to distant places. Blurring a harsh map is the classic fix, turning a jagged displacement into a glassy one. Noise, gradients, and soft photographic textures all make excellent raw material.
Can you use displacement maps on video?
Yes, on both sides of the equation: the footage being displaced can be video, and so can the map driving it. In Modulate the Displacement Map effect takes any layer in the composition as its map, a gradient, a noise generator, or another video, and reads it fresh every frame, so animated maps produce living distortion.
Related effects
Wave effect
Bends the image with moving distortion: swirling turbulence, rolling directional waves, or rings spreading from a point.
Edge warp effect
Pulls the image toward the center and squeezes a stretched, magnified band around the edges, like looking through thick curved glass.
Spherize effect
Wraps the image onto a sphere — the disk bends over the ball, on a flat colour or transparent background.
Datamoshing
Smears moving parts of the image into blocky trails, like a corrupted video that never gets a clean frame.