Model: give the challenge coin dimension
Turn an approved challenge coin silhouette into a robust 3D body, then use aligned grayscale depth maps to build clear, manufacturable surface hierarchy. Learn what to check before height, brush, and edge settings become permanent.
What the Model page looks like
Model puts three representations side by side: the design image, its grayscale depth map, and the generated 3D challenge coin. Read them together. The 2D design explains where a feature belongs, the height map explains how high it is, and the 3D view reveals whether the result reads correctly in space.
Top-left switches between front and back. Each face owns its depth map and surface settings, while the generated body remains one closed object. Always confirm which face is active before importing, brushing, or mirroring.
The first Model-page review should happen before you upload any depth image: rotate the clean base body and look for an uninterrupted outer wall, correct holes, and intentional overlay transitions.
What a depth map is
A depth map is a grayscale height instruction, not a shaded illustration: brighter values raise the challenge coin surface and darker values lower it. It should describe form, not fake light.
The most reliable maps use a small, intentional hierarchy of values: a base plane, a primary raised level, and optional secondary or highlight levels. Smooth transitions are useful where you want a slope; random gray noise is not detail and will show up as unwanted texture.
Keep the background pure black and preserve the same canvas size, placement, and orientation as the face artwork. A depth map does not repair an incorrect silhouette; it only changes height within the existing face region.
Confirm the base body before adding height
Before you sculpt a coin face, inspect the generated base from a shallow angle and from the side. The front and back surfaces should be closed by a continuous wall, and any different front/back contours should form a deliberate overlay transition rather than a missing patch.
If the body is wrong, return to Design and fix the artwork alpha contour first. Do not use a depth map to conceal an opening, compensate for an accidental thin band, or force one face to match a different outline on the other side.
This separation is important: Design owns topology, Model owns height. Keeping those responsibilities separate makes every later adjustment easier to reason about and safer to save.
Upload a ready-made depth map
Already have a depth image? Click Upload Depth Image and choose the file. Check its alignment before judging its visual quality: the main emblem, lettering, and frame should land in the same locations as the design image.
Then set physical height and smoothing deliberately. Height controls how far values move from the datum in millimetres; smoothing softens transitions but cannot improve a poorly aligned or noisy source map.
Watch the 3D challenge coin while you drag, especially from a grazing angle. That view exposes overly steep slopes, clipped detail, and unwanted texture far earlier than a front-on preview.
Prepare a depth map externally
No depth image yet? Download your front design from the Model toolbar and create an aligned grayscale height map in your preferred image editor or external depth-map tool.
Back in the editor, click Upload Depth and pick that grayscale image. The coin surface updates immediately; fine-tune it with the brushes if you like.
Fixing details with brushes
Switch the left panel to Brush to edit height locally: a brighter stroke raises an area and a darker stroke lowers it. Think of the brush as a correction tool for controlled changes, not as a replacement for a clean source depth map.
Work large to small. First level broad background zones and establish the primary hierarchy; then use a smaller brush for recesses, borders, and corners. Keep checking the 3D preview and use gentle changes near the rim, where abrupt height variation is easiest to notice.
For repeatable work, make one change at a time and inspect it under the same camera angle. That avoids accidentally combining a brush change, a smoothing change, and a lighting change into one hard-to-diagnose result.
Text reads backwards? Mirror it
Sometimes back-face lettering appears mirrored even though the depth map itself is correct. That is usually a viewing-direction issue: the back is observed from the opposite side of the physical coin.
Use Mirror only for the active face when its surface detail needs to be flipped left-to-right. After toggling it, inspect a distinctive letter or asymmetric emblem in the 3D view before continuing.
The magic wand
The magic wand clicks a motif and selects the patch of similar color around it — handy when you want to raise or lower just that shape.
Tolerance controls how strict the match is: small numbers pick precisely, big numbers pick generously.
Common questions
Coin surface detail too shallow? Increase the raise limit gradually, then inspect the silhouette under a shallow light. Raising every value at once can make secondary detail compete with the main emblem.
One face flat in 3D? Switch to that face and confirm that its own depth map was uploaded, is not entirely black, and remains aligned to the face artwork.
Everything looks melted together? The source gray levels are too close or the smoothing is too high. First restore clear value separation in the depth map, then add only as much smoothing as the transition needs.