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how to make seamless textures, help needed (solution found :) page 2 )

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#1

i am doing for “adventures of blackthorn” some textures, which should tile seamless. i thought, this is no big deal with zbrush, as i can shift the layers horizontal and vertical and can render with diffuse and specular lightining only to do so. but, i ran into a problem :

when i render my seamless texture a “material” seam occurs at the left boundary and top boundary of the texture, otherwise its seamless. this is clearly visible when you tile the texture. i include the wip texture below, so you can see the problem. (dont blame me for the topic, they want skulls…)

question : is there a way to avoid this material seam ?

(i am not so fond of looking forward to retouch these manually for each texture i do… )

#2

Hi kokoro,
i have this problem too…and this is a workaround (not perfect)…
Certain materials will create a shadow artifact at the very edge of the screen. When you use the MRGBZGrabber tool and then fill the canvas with the grabbed texture, it is a good idea to use the Flat Color as your fill material. This will prevent such artifacting.
If you haven’t filled the layer with a texture, but are still getting that shadow artifact, then a good solution is to do the following:

  1. Grab the canvas as if you plan to export it.
  2. Clear the canvas. Choose the Flat Color material and fill the canvas again.
  3. Tilde-scroll to bring the artifact into view.
  4. Use the 2D correction brushes (such as Smudge, Blur, and Cloner) to remove the line.
  5. Use the MRGBZGrabber to capture the new version of the texture, which will now be free from such lines.

cameyo

p.s. Another hint: try to enhance canvas (4 pixols or so) before render (with cropper zscript) and, when you are satisfied with result, crop down the canvas to original size (i have not tried this)

#3

Hi Kokoro
Is not a Tiller Script inside the prog ? :slight_smile:
Pilou

Tiler
Seam away
And you can use the Zplace Cameyo Array :slight_smile:

#4

Hi to avoid seam, only paint in center of canvas, and use the ~ key to scroll the layer around.

and dont use Control F to fill layer… this will give you definate seam…

anyways also dont paint close to the edge of the canvas, you will get a line there also…

http://www.pixolator.com/zbc-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=012656
and http://www.pixolator.com/zbc-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=012645
and http://www.pixolator.com/zbc-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=012628

those links are for seamless texture tutorials…

all tuts have Zscripts…

when you see me pan in the script I am useing the ~ key …

hope this helps

notice how I also stay in center of canvas when painting…

#5

hi thank you all. but i think only cameyo got was my problem is. :rolleyes:

cameyo, yes that i know, i did with my first texture, but this is additional work i want to avoid… i have to do several textures, and i hate doing work which is not really necessary…

to make problem more clear : i do the tilde trick, paint only in the middle, do not fill etc, you can see the skulls itself tile perfectly. but allways when i render there is a one pixel line on left border and top border. if you inspect your images closely you also will notice these.

my textures are not meant to tile in zbrush, but in a game…

any more suggestions how to avoid material seam ? maybe it is zbrush artefact, which cannot avoid ?

#6

Hi kokoro,
have you tried the hint on p.s. of my previous post ?
I think it is simple and fast (but maybe don’t work :confused: ).

  1. Make your texture as you want
  2. run cropper script and enhance the canvas of 4 pixols
  3. best render with shadow, fog, ecc.
  4. run cropper script and reduce the canvas of 4 pixols.
    Tonight i’ll try myself.

cameyo

#7

Hi Kpkoro
Spray trick !
This post show that the spray don’t make seam !
So for you just reduce the the flow to 0 for draw just one object !
Hope this help!
Pilou

another trick !

#8

thanks again you two. :slight_smile:

yes, cameyo, i just tried it, in my case its not working, one can notice the missing=deleted lines. but this maybe is usable in other cases, i kepp that in mind.

frrenchy, the first, is just spraying. i need 3d objects. and the second avoids rendering shadows, which i also need.

sorry to be so burden…

ps i also checked polaris brick ttu. the texture created has the same problem, only it is more difficult to see, as the texture is much more noisy…

#9

ha, rereading your tip, cameyo, i think i did wrong !

i try again, yes, i think this sounds good. makes perfectly sense : make first as you like then enlarge with cropper to make 1 pixel boundary, render, and remove boundary. clever. i am sure that will work…

big thanks cameyo, you saved me a lot of work :slight_smile:

#10

Hi Kokoro
The spray can works also with 3Dobject too :slight_smile:
Pilou

#11

hi!
With photoshop, you can use the filter " translation" for that.

#12

Just would like to add one thing. In the ‘Show and Tell’ ZScript of TextureMaster. The chapter where Pix textures the apple shows him making a seamless texture with it at the end. Gotta love that ~ key.

#13

hi thanks all for your help, but its not working yet.

cameyo, i tried now what you suggested, but this shadow remains. it is alrady visible in preview mode. i tried several sizes for enlarging, always the same.

i think i will need to do the painful retouche job. :mad:

#14

Hi all - first post here so I hope I get it right :slight_smile:

I had this problem with a seam showing but found that if I used the MRGBZGrabber and then exported the texture from the texture palette it appears to work.Hope this helps ?

Back to lurking…

#15

Hi Alan
Welcome aboard!
You begin with a mega tip (if it’s work :slight_smile:
Have happy Zbrushing!
Pilou

#16

Here’s another approach:

  1. Fill your canvas with the base color and material.
  2. Bake the layer.
  3. ~ scroll to bring the seams into view
  4. Use the cloner brush to remove those seams
  5. Add your repeating elements (in this case, the skulls).

Because it is the base material that is causing the problem, it’s a snap to get rid of the artifact before adding the additional details rather than after.

The only problem you might have would be if you wish the repeating details to have shadows. In this case place them on a second layer. When you’ve finished adding them, MRGBZGrab the layer and then use the depth grab as a stencil on the first layer. You can now easily paint through the stencil to add the shadows (a single drag rectangle stroke will do the trick). To blur the shadow edges, turn off the stencil and use the Blur brush with the drag rectangle stroke again.

Hope that helps!

#17

The problem is caused by Anti-Alias. Not the AA Half zoom mode, but the built-in Anti-Alias algorithm in the Best Renderer.

Set both the Super Sample and Size to 1, and the black line will disappear. You may also notice that if you increase the size, the black line gets thicker.

You’ll lose the filtered anti-alias effect, but you can still use the AA Half zoom, so it won’t matter much.

Hope that helps.

#18

welcome alan first post and very helpful. thanks a lot. happy zbrushing for you.

thanks aurick and skaven252, i will try and let you know what happens :slight_smile:

#19

yippie, i found a reasonable solution !

first, skaven252, i tried what you said, but it unfortenuately did not work. it would have been so simple, with no extra work at all.

here is how i do remove the material seam with a few clicks :

  1. my texture is 512x512 on 2 layers. first i merge the layers.

  2. crop document to 1024x1024

  3. duplicate layer, move new layer horizontal 512 pixels, merge.

  4. duplicate layer, move new layer vertical 512 pixels, merge.

we have now tiled the zbrush document, there are no seams in the middle lines (!) only left border and top has material seam. that means the lower right square is the texture as we want to have it, without any seams :slight_smile:

  1. render, export, cut (for example in photoshop) the lower right 512x512 square and yippie.

let me thank you all again for your friendly help, i am glad we solved this, and hope this little bit of info will be useful for your own textures.

#20

Clever trick :cool:
Pilou