[Q] Using Textures on Large Areas

[Bob James]

Even after all these years of using Thea and SketchUp, I have a pretty much "Newbie" question:

I have a large area of sand covered with weeds and bushes. There are also clear areas.
I need to put a non-uniform texture on the entire area but I cannot find a way to do that since textures with any character to them are typically only about 10" x 10" and not tileable. Even when made "tiled", the unique character (e.g., stones) cannot be successfully tiled.
I used Substance Converter to bring in some "perfect' textures, but they have the same non-tileable problem.

So the question is: How do I apply a texture (other than a solid color or a completely random one like "grass") to a large area?

[Rombout]

Could you show some examples images of your problem?

Doing big areas if very difficult with textures and not using procedurals. Tiling will be super easy to spot!

[Bob James]

Doing big areas if very difficult with textures and not using procedurals. Tiling will be super easy to spot!

Yes,that's the problem I trying to solve: how to texture large areas with realistic material.

[gelbuilding]

Hi Bob,

Give us a sample of what you require and what size you need.

[Hieru]

The tricky thing is finding a texture large enough to help avoid repetition, but even those can be problematic on very large areas.

The next thing to do is make sure that you neutralise the tone of the texture. It's usually uneven contrast that creates the tiling effect on large surfaces.

Even then you can run into issues. One trick is to stack the same Diffuse texture when creating your material and have each version of the texture rotated to a different angle.

If you are using a bump map the above applies to that also.

[JQL]

If you'd use Substance Painter you could split the terrain in quads, apply a texture to each quad and then send it to painter and paint the seams. Each texture could be different, or the same but rotated and mirrored randomly and as long as it's a different material, you can paint the seams.

This will be specially useful if you name the textures following UDIM convention (same name but with a prefix or suffix that starts in 1001 and ends on 9999) Painter will assume they are all part of the same material and you will easily paint seams.

This though, is in theory, as I never tried it.

[Bob James]

This is a photo of a typical sub-area:

JQL: Standard 12"x12" textures with random stones result in an obvious "mosaic" repetition even if I make a tileable version

[JQL]

You use skatter don't you? Why not spreading some gravel or other stuff on the floor to break away the repetition?

Also use the trick hieru posted to further break away seams (use a rotated texture mixed with the first one, through thea's texture editor)

[D-W]

Bob create 3 layers of different materials and ad to them oversized masks (like 0.05 UV space) from baked procedural noises for best output make your own for eg. http://blog.krazeike.com/SiteContent/Images/noise.png

Hope this helps somehow - soon we will get perlin in mc finaly (I hope so )

[Rombout]

The image will never look great with just a texture, you really need skatter or some other plugin which can handle the variation. The key to realistic environment is none repetitive patterns, unless its flowers or plants with a close up. BUt thats a different story and subject. You really should try skatter its AWESOME! super easy and really good for big areas. Just drop in a couple plant models like you example photo and get painting live in su, paint where ever you want the bushes to appear. See below vid



Whats even cooler is that he previews it with Thea Render, cause its faster than the others