Blending tiles with random rotation, translation and edge shape

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Hi eveyone,

Random_Tiling_color_normal.blend (1.1 MB)

Edit 1: The rotation produces a problem for normal maps. The shading appears like baked lighting and rotates with the normal map.

Edit 2: So I made a version for normal maps too. I just needed to unrotate right after the image node. Right now this whole setup is really clumsy, if someone would try to do a full Color, Roughness, Normal etc. setup. If anyone knows how to do something like a texture input for a group node, then this could be one group node.

Edit3: I put the Color and Normal map version together to one setup now and fixed an issue with the Z-channel in the rotation group node.

This material node setup is very much inspired by the video called " How to Tile a Texture Without Repetition - Blender Tutorial " by Blender Guru (Andrew Price)

I only had the problem that you couldn’t blend the edges of each tile, which would be very helpful for vector or normal mapping.

My Setup allows for linear blending between the neighbouring tiles. There are 4 tile patterns that match each others edges and get mixed by just adding them together at the end.

I hope Blender Guru his video and the images explain it enough. Every green marked frame in the material has values to edit for you. Be aware that your Input texture still needs to be seamless for this method to work.

Explain_Overview
Explain_Overview1400×800 153 KB
Explain
Explain1930×2051 375 KB

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I think a part of the reason Blender Guru did not use MixRGB is that it quickly becomes expensive if you use multiple maps like Color+Roughness+Normal+Disp. Did you do any testing with an adequate texture set? :thinking:

And what about normal maps? :face_with_monocle: Amusing that I haven’t seen anyone handling normal maps in the right way. :disappointed: Blender Guru does it neither in the video nor in his addon. :expressionless:

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I tested it with a vector map sequence from an ocean simulation and a simple gras texture. It did look fine to me. But none the less I’ll add a disclaimer that this is by far not the perfect way :wink:

I just did a little test. There seems to be a problem: if I rotate the UV from a normal map the shading rotates with it, as if the lighting was baked in. Maybe there is a solution for that.

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Maybe there is a solution for that

The solution is to rotate normals in the opposite direction.

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FUN. @cgCody already built a node setup to rotate normals and put it on his profile, but his profile is hidden… thx. Rotate normal map inside the node editor?

Edit1: ok, I think I know what you meant @Unwave. There is a vector rotation node that simplifies my setup a bit. The same one can be used with the image color output as the vector input for the rotation node. I’ll post a normal map verison of my node spaghetti setup as soon as possible :wink:

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Is this what you’re talking about? Sharing: Over-Engineered Mapping Node Alternative

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Yes, thank you. I also found it later just by searching ubermapping in the forum. XD

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Just adding a link to a very similar material setup that I posted, but with a texture consisting of an customizable RGB pattern for a mask, instead of the mask being generated on the fly. Random texture tiling material with RGB Mask

I can’t edit my original post, so this is my way of interlinking now.