zbrush non square tileable technique?

panic

does anyone know a good technique or workflow to sculpt non-square (1x2) tiling textures?
i dont think wrap mode will work for this.

Eric Chadwick

See the wiki, might help you.

http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/EnvironmentSculpting

general_sogun

Of course you can!

I highlighted for you my long, non-square tile. Perfectly tiles as you see.

You can do this Naughty Dog style:

Here is Preview render:

Best render with shadows:

Here is the displacement alpha:

Here is the Know-how:

The creator of this super genius plugin is Marcus Civis: retired.

Read below carefully, what Marcus wrote then. This amazing treasure here in this post is my contribution to the Polycount community.

First:
1. I saved the web-page from Old ZBC in 2012!! Since then that webpage no longer exists...

2. Then see the attached plugin, which I also saved, just in time before it DISAPPEARED from Zbrush Central,  for you all, who wish to render a super-amazing SEAMLESS, full document Best Render in Zbrush! Without the ugly Dark Border, which Zbrush R4-2021-2024 always produces..

Seamless Textures

Seamless textures are easy to produce in ZBrush as you can drag the canvas by holding the ~ (tilde) key and the image will wrap around. You can then paint some more and fill any gaps. However there are a few things you need to do to export a perfect tile. This little plugin simplifies the process and will give perfect tiles in most situations [see Notes below].

Installation

1. Unzip the zip file and put the SeamlessTexture.zsc in your ZStartup/ZPlugs folder.
2. Restart ZBrush. There will be a new Tileable Texture menu in the Texture palette.


Instructions

1. Create your texture using the ZBrush canvas. Check that rendering and shadows (if you are using them) are set up to your satisfaction.
2. As a precaution, save a back up version of your Document.
3. If you want to use Best render then press the Render:Best button; if you want to use Flat render then press the Render:Flat button, otherwise Preview render will be used.
4. Press the Texture>Tileable Texture>Create Seamless button.

Depending on the canvas size and render settings the plugin will take a few moments to work. When it has finished the texture will be placed in the Texture palette from where it can be exported. There will also be an alpha of the canvas depth in the Alpha palette, should you want it.

Notes
* AA Half will not work. If you want anti-aliasing use Render:SoftRGB instead or reduce in Photoshop or another image editor.
* Some extreme shadows may produce slight artefacts at the image edge/joins.
* The document dimensions should be divisible by 2. Odd pixel dimensions will be increased/decreased by 1 pixel.

***Updated December 23 2011 to enable Flat Render option***

SeamlessTexture02.zip

gnoop

This 2,5D  zbrush canvas  is inconvenient as hell , even using layers.   Instantly destructive once you drop a thing  . You have to plan evry step ahead.   Evry  fill color if you expect to extract some masks later.

It never got a single update since  1999 release.   And so far  nobody tried to do a decent  non destructive alternative .

Nobody use it nowadays  really  while it did been briefly  popular  in  the beginning of  new millennia.   You can use Affinity designer  or  Photoshop  pattern preview today  to simulate same 2.5D 'pixols"  with more options and totally non destructive.

Benjammin

Agreed with gnoop - I despise the 2.5D canvas...
Its pretty rare I need to use Zbrush for tiling textures these days, but when I do, its a combination of array meshes and offsetting (under deformation menu). If you work with the Zbrush 2x2 plane, you can place subtools on one edge, then offset them by 200 on whatever axis you need. When you're done, you just set your canvas to whatever dimensions you need and focus on the plane, which will perfectly fill it. Then just grab doc and you're done.
(I learnt this technique from the great  Dannie Carlone)

Array meshes are a little more finicky because the offset values aren't absolute. But, if you have a displacement map you need to make tileable, You can apply it to the 2x2 plane, then array mesh that (google array mesh to see how to set it up)
If you lock position and size, you can scale your plane so it overlaps itself, then just sculpt on one and it will replicate what you do to the array.


Showing the overlap in the last image after scaling. In this case I'd use the move brush with X and Y locked to selectively push and pull elements to make it tile.

These examples are obviously for square textures, but the method is the same for non-square - you'd just use different array settings, and/or offset an extra 200 in whatever is the long axis. You'd want 2 Zbrush planes merged as your base guide, then set the canvas to whatever dimension it needed to be.

gnoop

if you use default z brush plane primitive and your target texture is 1x2   you can use  2 and -2 in Array   for  x axis (using append new button) and  2 and -4 for y axis. 

Also duplicate  the original  plane  before this  overlay scale up.  You would be able to use it as a crop factor  after you "grab" it  , and  then  texture > crop and fill.

ps. IMO it's more convenient  to use Blender  geometry nodes  or array modifier  for same purpose if you can sculpt in Blender.  You can use  geometry nodes to grow moss  on such rocks for example.  Looking way more  realistic  with proper render  than  zbrush fibermesh or nano meshes   ever could be.

ps2.   You can  also use Substance Painter  with  a plane  arrayed  in 3 iteration in x and Y axis.  It doesn't allow to sculpt exactly but you can  do height combine in between layers  with "compare" masks    using  wrap  projection for layers and on screen transform gizmos .      Easier deform tools  and you still can paint height  to control  height blending.     Not  Zbrush  perfect sculpting feel in your hands of course but still sort of  doable.     With decent tessellation and displacement on in shader settings it even look 3d like in Zbrush .

gsokol

So uhhhhhhh @gneral_sogun do you happen to have that script handy?  I used to use that script all the time, but that thread on Zbrush Central is gone now