Quick and easy way to check texture tiling in photoshop?

Olli.

Hey im making some tiling textures, and I need to check how it looks when I tile it to make sure I dont have like very slight hue gradients that'll look bad when the texture is tiled.
Doing it by hand each time to check takes too long, since I need to check a LOT and edit again etc..

I've already tried creating an action for it but I cant find a way to reliably resize the canvas so that it'd work for the various resolutions im using..

Another solution could be if I could instance my texture sheet in photoshop (multiply it in a tile pattern and then when I edit the middle one, the changes are transmitted to each of the clones) But I dont know if this is possible in photoshop or how to do it...

any help is greatly appreciated

JamesWild

Have you tried the Offset modifier? It's not a perfect way of doing it but with wrap around it means you can work on the seam.

samman

The instances your talking about are called smart objects in photoshop
You can create an image at the max res you want to work in then, convert the layer to smart object, scale down, adjust, and duplicate the smart object layer into a 3x3 grid space so you get tiling surrounding the middle square. then you can open the smart object layer in another photoshop window and thats the window where you could do all the work painting and use offset filter, etc like you normally would, then just ctrl/cmnd+s and it updates all the instances in the main doc. you can even make an image at the max res and duplicate the smart object layers down to the resolutions you want to work in, so you can dynamically preview them at multiple resolutions, all in the same doc, and all at the same time. Doing it this way saves me truckloads of time. The only downside is that smart objects like to eat up quite al ot of ram so...yeah, give it a shot.

haiddasalami

perna wrote: »

So, why don't you just view it in your modeling application? One key to export, ALT+TAB to switch application (well, if you use max anyway, it'll automatically update the viewport texture)

One thing I wish maya did was reload textures when it detects a file update though I just ended up making my own.

Kurt Russell Fan Club

You can do it once and record a macro. I've got one bound to F2 that will:

- flatten
- resize the current image to 512x512
- resize the canvas to 2048x2048, expanding right and down
- duplicate the background layer and move it across 512, then flatten
- duplicate the background then move it down 512, then flatten
- do the above two, but moving 1024 each time

It means you can just preview then undo it (or do it in a new document) and you don't need to much around applying it to a model or anything if you don't have a 3d package open and the current texture applied.

latorril

Awesome @Samman. That sounds pretty nifty!

throttlekitty

I wish smart objects were a bit smarter. I ran into this trying to do instanced documents between illustrator and photoshop. Editing a smart object always works on a temp copy, never the original referenced file. Seems backward from a non-destructive workflow.

You should be able to:
Main Document.psd that has all your layers and work, and then...
*File>New -with size to accommodate tiling the original
*File>Place>Main Document.psd -imports a reference to that document as a smart object.
*Duplicate four times to create the tiles.

What I expect from this is that I can continue editing Main Document.psd, and see saved changes reflected in the smart object document, but this doesn't happen. I can double-click one of the smart objects to 'edit' it, but this creates a new copy of Main Document.psd in a temp folder. So, edits to this new document are never carried over to the original.

haiddasalami: I was surprised that they never added it after the big switch to QT for the interface, it has a nice file monitor function. Another app I use that uses QT used it, very handy.

edit: I should mention that File>Place works in Illustrator the way I expect, but not in Photoshop. (both are CS6)

Eric Chadwick

I like TextureFrank for checking my tiling.
http://www.depoort-ia.com/fdb/index.php?id=2026

I used to use Texture Desk from Spectralogue, it was super-lightweight, but they took it down. Texture Frank has a bunch of nice options, but the basics are pretty much all I need... save in Photoshop, see it update on a tiled plane.

samman

@throttlekitty, there is a photoshop plugin called Links, that I think will do what you want. I'm really not sure if it works with CS6 though.

Pangahas

@Eric Thanks for the link I liked it as well,I'm looking at practicing tiling handpainted textures and its a time saver for checking seams.

dreatern

I use smart object as mentioned by @samman

Here a example/template PSD file for 512x512 textures
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/22781761/Downloads/Texture%20Tile%20Viewer.psd (1,62mb)

Little video here [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWoJ5jl9pUw"]Tutorial/tip Photoshop Texture Tile Viewer (Using Smart Object) - YouTube[/ame]

Just double click on "TEX Tile EDIT ME" layer icon and make your texture there.
Using 2 monitors you can have 1 window on each monitor or you can just put the viewer window floating over the texture window that you are working os side by side.

CTRL+S to view the result instantly

When finished, simply Save As... and preserve the template

cptSwing

Some useful tools and tips far beyond the scope of the crummy Offset filter here.. thanks everybody!

dreatern

cptSwing wrote: »

Some useful tools and tips far beyond the scope of the crummy Offset filter here.. thanks everybody!

The Offset filter is an essential part to create a tiled texture, without it would be extremely laborious.
The tips and tools here are ways to quickly view the tile while we're doing the texture.

Eric Chadwick

Offset All Visible Layers is a nice tool too.
http://wiki.polycount.com/PhotoshopTools#Actions.2C_Filters.2C_Scripts

leleuxart

I just open up a new, large canvas and paste my flattened tiling texture. Then holding alt + shift, while using the move tool, just drag out the extra images. Alt will automatically copy the layer and shift will ensure that you're moving at a straight angle horizontally or vertically. It helps to have the "snap to..." feature on in Photoshop too.

Eric Chadwick

Making a tiled preview in Photoshop hasn't been all that useful for me. At one point recently I was making textures for a MMO. They were tiled across large terrains, where you really see the repeats! To remove tiling artifacts it's best to see the texture diminishing in a perspective view... that way the discontinuities really stand out. Texture Frank was great because our level editor didn't support quick texture reloads. But like Perna said reloading in your 3D app is really the best way, so you see it on the real mesh.