Is it possible to use height maps from substance designer in Blender and how?

Question

I've been learning Substance Designer for a short while. The thing which I noticed is that all those impressive materials we see on ArtStation are based on SD's height system, which uses tessellation and translates it into grayscale height maps. So, the question is how can I use height maps exported from SD in order to achieve the same "depth" effect in Blender? I understand that Blender refers to this effect as displacement. However, displacement modifier produces new geometry, attaching height maps to displacement node does not work, blending height and normals in one map in SD does not help either. Is this even possible?

UPD. Below is a render from SD which shows the material on a plane. The plane is clearly displaced in accordance with the height map. Now in Blender, I managed to produce the same result only by using the Displace modifier and by Displacement node together with experimental Cycles options and adaptive subsurf modifier. Blend file is attached. May be these are the only viable options. Grateful if someone could confirm.

Answer 1

After further research it appears that the only reasonable way to make height maps work in Blender is as set out below. The displacement support is still experimental in the latest 2.8 builds. Hope the development team will procure full support in the stable release of 2.8. I'm not sure how all this affects vertex count and render time. Hope this will be helpful to someone.

• choose Cycles as render engine;
• choose "Experimental" feature set in render settings;
• add Subsurf modifier to your mesh, switch it to "simple" and tick "adaptive" on;
• create a new material for the mesh;
• in Material tab scroll down to "Settings", find "Displacement method" and choose "Displacement and bump";
• plug in your height map into Displacement Node.

This video illustrates the above (it is in French though): Video

Answer 2

I was able to bring the height map over when done with it in Designer. First three steps are similar to the answer above.

From there:

• choose Cycles as render engine;
• choose "Experimental" feature set in render settings;
• add Subsurf modifier to your mesh, switch it to "simple" and tick "adaptive" on;
• apply subsurf modifier.
• add Displace modifier, click new, then go into the texture and open your height map for the modifier. Set strength accordingly to match.
• if Subsurf wasn't enough, add another Subsurf modifier to add more vertices and detail. Make sure it is above Displace modifier.
• Apply both modifiers.
• Once the plane takes shape like you want it, add Decimate modifier to manage vertices and render time, while maintaining the shape.
• Create new material and add the rest of your maps to texture it.
  • Combine AO and base color in shader for final base color
  • use height for normal strength