I’m using Quixel Bridge for the textures. I want to make a room that looks burnt. However, I can’t seem to make the wall look nice. It just has this ugly, repetitive texture. This is how it looks like now:
There are various ways you can do this. I suggest looking at some tutorials for a broader perspective of how it can be done.
Here are some ideas of how it can be done:
Use a larger texture: Using a larger texture will reduce the visibility of repetition in the pattern.
Add random noise: Adding random noise to the texture can help break up the repetitive pattern and make it appear more organic.
Use tiling offsets: Using tiling offsets, you can adjust the position of the texture on each face of the wall to reduce repetition.
Blend multiple textures: By blending multiple textures together, you can create a more complex, less repetitive pattern.
Use a normal map: A normal map can add depth and variation to a flat surface, making it appear less repetitive.
Apply a mask: Creating a mask and using it to blend in different materials can also help reduce repetition.
It’s worth experimenting with different combinations of these techniques to find what works best for your specific use case. Keep in mind that the goal is to create a believable, organic look for your textures, and that the key to success is often a combination of technical knowledge and artistic intuition.
So the last one definitely tiles; look at the splotches on the wall, left to right, 3x above that light-bar. the darker splotches on the floor are also fairly regular.
I’ve come up with what I call (for myself) the rule-of-3: that you’ll always want for at least 3 texture-samples to break up tiling in a satisfactory way.
It’s not small medium large, it’s whatever. 1 texture tiles, 2 will mix, but you still have that angled seam where at some angles, you see it, some you don’t. Thus you need at least one more texture, be it noise, or a 3rd sample of PBR, or whatever; but you’ll still need to break up the 2-fer.
My personal technique is to:
make sure the base texture is somewhat untiling. I get this is not 100% achievable, but things like noticeable splotches, or a stain, whatever, can be readily picked-out by the eye and counter to what you want. A more general, noisy texture to start with can buy you some progress in this area.
if I am using this on a landscape, I usually just sample the same textures 2x, once small and once somewhat large, blend-angle-normals to mix it up and that works well enough if there is grass/debris and other stuff to break up the scene. Elden Ring seems to do it this way, or did before a recent patch. If you take a quick second when you load in the level, before the grass pops in, you can see how the textures are tiling/mixed. if it’s a static mesh, the 2nd texture can be a decorator like grime, dirt, or the like, anything to break it up.
per the above-step, i’ll use a noise-texture to feed into the flatness of a flatten-normal, and tweak levels for the RGB so it noises out the X, Y, and/or Z of the normal at different levels in different places. this allows one to share the noise across multiple materials and save some overhead, particularly texture-samples & texture-memory. I also use this noise to mix in colors for BaseColor, or otherwise add variety to the material.
ultimately, it’s how the parts are mixed that make the most of the deal. really, will it blend? don’t just plug in a straight-up noise into the alpha of a MaterialBlend node, add some maths to that, use a height-blend with various different controls going into the parts to break up the maths even more.
tip: don’t scale all your texture the same and/or start painting them on the same UVs else any seams will line up and reinforce one another, visually. if you are using a main-texture and a detail-texture both off TexCoor(0), add an offset to the detail-texture so you can tweak it’s exact position. sometimes it’s really just where things are on-top of one another that can be the deciding factor. a little bit here or there and it looks artificial but right there, bingo!
This tutorial describes a number of different ways you can break up your tiling (works with walls, not just landscape) - plus a couple of them could be used to make the “burnt” look:
Create multiple non transparent tileable textures.
Use one texture as the “base” for your wall material.
Overlay parts of the other textures as “detail textures”. The blend opacity can be controlled by a mask such as noise. The detail texture’s UV mapping can be controlled by world position coordinates (there is a material node for that).
Use a much more bland texture as base, and then use decals for the damage/scorch marks.
Lots and lots of decals.
Also, the base texture should probably either be larger, or have multiple layers with different texture coordinate stretching, that aren’t just even multiples like 1 and 2 – larger differences like 5 versus 7 will work better. (And the actual texture coordinate calculation would be divide-by-5 versus divide-by-7 to make it “larger”)
I totally get the struggle with repetitive textures—ran into the same issue in the past. If you’re using Quixel Bridge and can’t get rid of that tiling effect, you might want to check out Extile. It basically removes repetition and works with any material, including Megascans or any other textures. Just thought it might help if anyone is running into the same issue.
