Common information

QuickTiles is a texture plugin for 3d max. It cuts the texture you set into individual elements, and then reassembles it in the order you specify. It does NOT generate textures from thin air, according to the specified parameters. To use it, you need the original texture sets.

There are two main ways to work. The first is the reorganization of finished tile textures (which have separate elements and seams between them), such as brickwork or paving stones.

The second method is to cut and distribute solid textures, such as concrete, stone, or wood surfaces, into containers.

The entire working process in the QuickTiles can be divided into 3 stages. Adding the original texture and slicing in the Slice Editor, selecting or creating a layout pattern in the Pattern Editor, and setting up details and randomizations in the general texture interface inside the Material editor.

One of the main distinguishing features of QT is that it generates a seamless piece of texture of a certain size, which is set by the user himself. It can't generate an infinite texture, like the procedural Noise or Gradient.

For the best understanding of the instructions for using QuickTiles, we recommend reading the chapters in a row, without skipping additional materials and video instructions.

Compatibility

The Quick Tiles plugin is fully compatible and works in the 3d max version from 2018 to 2024

Currently supported render engines: Vray, Corona, Fstorm*

Working with Fstorm

Due to the complexity and specifics of Fstorm and similar GPU rendering engines, the first version of QucikTiles cannot work with it as directly as with Vray or Corona. Therefore, unlike them, when creating material in Fstorm, QT saves the texture as bitmaps to the hard disk, and then automatically loads them into Mat. editor as FstormBitmap. In this case, the QuickTiles node is not deleted.

To update the textures you should use "Save to plain texture" function. Unfortunately, due to the limitations of Fstorm, the bitmaps will need to be updated manually.

If you use the "Create Material" function, another new material will be created.

Don't try to connect Quick Tiles on one of the FStorm material channels. Put it on an empty Compact mat.editor slot or in an empty Slate mat.editor space

Installation and activation

1. ATTENTION! The plugin requires an active internet connection to work.

2. Run the plugin installation as administrator. The included archive must be located next to the file QuickTiles.exe at the time of installation, to install a new version, or update the libraries

3. Select the versions of 3d max that the plugin will be installed on (from 2018 to 2024)

4. The plugin library is installed in the current user's folder, in the QuickTiles subcategory

4. The plugin library is located in the current user's folder, in the QuickTiles subcategory. All files are downloaded from the plugin interface. Libraries are updated once a week automatically, or at any time, manually, in the About section.

5. After installation, the plugin will appear in the list of textures, in the General tab

6. The free trial period is 14 days. No additional activation or registration is required

7. After 14 days, the plugin will stop working. This means that the test period (or paid subscription period) has expired and requires purchase and activation. Also in About section you can see "Subscription expired" notification

8. When purchasing a subscription on the site, BE SURE to provide a valid email address

9. After purchasing a subscription, click Activate in the About section

10. In the window that appears, enter the same email address that you used for the purchase and click Ok

11. Within a few minutes you will receive an email with a link to activate it

12. After clicking on this link, the plugin will be activated.

13. After restarting 3d max, the plugin will work correctly until the subscription ends.

14. 30 days before the end of the subscription period, the exact number of remaining days will appear in the About section

15. While the subscription is active, the Activation button is unavailable.

Re-activation

16. If you reinstall the plugin on a new computer or make significant changes to the hardware of the current one, perform the activation again according to the standard procedure. The plugin installed on the old computer will stop working.

17. There can be no more than 5 such re-activations for one year of subscription. If you have run out of activations, contact technical support (support@quick-tiles.net) and we will try to find a solution to this problem.

Simple material creation

Setting up any material in QuickTiles starts with adding the QT node itself. It is available from the list of General textures (1-2) in the Compact and Slate material editor. You don't need to create the material and connect QT on any channel. Add it to any slot in the compact editor or any place in the slate (3).

Then we go to the QT itself. By default, the bets start parameters that are set. The first step in the setup is to add a set of tiles (1) and open the Slice Editor (2).

Slice Editor is a QuickTiles module in which you enter the original textures and specify the borders of the tiles (or that the texture is seamless). For more information about all the module parameters, see the Help section Slice Editor

The input textures are entered in the Input maps zone (1). You need to select the Diffuse channel, and the other channels are recognized and loaded automatically. After that, you can mark up the tiles manually, or recognize them automatically (for more information, see the section Slice editor). We will show a more convenient path now and make recognition based on the Mask channel. Set the value of Gaps (2) to about 0.7 — this will indicate to the recognition module the approximate error when gluing the seams. And click Autoslice (3). Recognition by mask is almost instantaneous.

Also, you can select and add one of the already saved templates from the library (4). After completing the work, click Done (5). At this point, the texture is cut into tiles. The larger your sources and the number of channels, the longer the process will take.

The next step is to select the pattern. You can take one of the templates (1) from the Preset drop-down list, or open the Pattern editor (3) and create a new pattern. Also, for tiles that have original seams, set the width of the procedural seam to 0. This will disable the procedural seam and enable mixing of the original seams (2).

For example, let's create a simple pattern in the Pattern editor. Use the  tool to create several tiles (1). Do not forget to reduce the field to the minimum required size (2). After creating the base pattern, you can fill the repeating part with the Fill gaps button (3). You can also select any template from the library. When you finish, click Done (5).

For more the details of the Pattern editor, see the corresponding section.

In fact, our texture is ready. Now we can make various settings in the internal interface, set randomizations, etc. For reference, we have added a light preview of the texture.

When everything is ready, you can set the size (1) and resolution (2) of the output texture piece. We recommend testing the settings on a small size (2x2 meters, 2048 px).

After that, click the Update button (3). At this point, the finished texture is built and written to temp. All changes in the material and on the render will appear only after clicking the Update button. The process of creating a texture can take 2-3 seconds on small resolutions, and 3-7 minutes on top sizes of 16-32K

After completing the process, click the Create material button. The plugin automatically recognizes your render engine (Vray, Corona, or Fstorm), and creates the appropriate material, with the correct configuration. Texture channels will be added according to the source texture.

Other render engines will be added later.
The algorithm for working with Fstorm is different from working with Vray and Corona. See Compatibility/ working with Fstorm

На этом все! Материал создан и готов к настройке. QuickTiles работает с интерактивным рендером как в Vray, так и в Corona, так что можно смело использовать его в процессе. При повторном нажатии на Create material, будет создан еще один материал, так что будьте осторожны.

That's it! The material is created and ready for customization. QuickTiles works with interactive rendering in both Vray and Corona, so you can safely use it in the process. Be careful, if you click on Create material again, another material will be created.

Quick Tiles channel is an auxiliary texture that specifies which QuickTiles channel to feed to the material slot. The fact is that 3d max can't produce more than one output from a single texture. Therefore, in order not to generate and configure each channel of the material separately, we created a scheme in which the main QuickTiles texture feeds all the channels at once, and the QuickTiles channel nodes select and pass on only the necessary one.

The interface of the node itself is very simple:

In the material structure, it is located between the main QT node and the material. In its interface, there are only two parameters — a drop-down list with the names of channels to choose from, and a slot for connecting the main QT texture.

Attention! When connecting normal maps, you do not need to enable gamma correction, since QTC node automatically corrects the gamma.

Generated texture settings

This tab contains technical settings that are responsible for the size and resolution of the created texture, as well as buttons for saving and updating textures.

Patch width — width of the created texture in scene units

Patch height — height of the created texture in scene units

Initial size — input for the desired physical size of the created texture

Result size — displays the resulting physical size of the texture. Works only when the enlarged preview is open.

Due to the complexity of the tiled texture formation mechanism and the desire to create a texture in which the tiles will be as close as possible to the size set by the user, it is impossible to accurately get into the size of the patch set by the user. For this purpose, fields of the desired and final size were created. Read more about this in the section "Texture formation mechanism»

Seed — randomization number. Changes the randomization version for the current settings.

Resolution — the resolution of the created texture in pixels.

Update — generates channel textures according to the QuickTiles settings

Create material — creates a material based on the loaded texture channels. The required material type is determined automatically for Vray and Corona. 

For FStorm, separate bitmaps are saved and loaded onto the material. At the same time, the QuickTiles node remains in Mat. editor

Save as plain texture — saving the resulting texture to a regular bitmap

Store to temp — saves the QT texture to a special temp file. The next time you open the scene, the texture is not generated, but is read from the file. This significantly reduces the opening time. In this case, the interface is locked — to unlock it, click the Store button again. The created temp file will be deleted.

The materials saved in this way will be rendered even without an active subscription.

Store to scene — saves the QT texture to a scene file (.max). The next time you open the scene, the texture is not generated, but is read from the .max file. This significantly reduces the opening time. This operation increases the size of the scene. In this case, the interface is locked — to unlock it, click the Store button again. The material will be deleted from .max file. 

The material saved in this way can be easily transferred from the scene to another computer, and it will also be rendered without an active subscription.

Load preset — load fully configured QuickTiles material from the Preset library

Save preset — save the current QuickTiles material settings to the Preset library

Scene units

Due to the complex technical features of Quick Tiles, we recommend that you work in it as if you are using centimeters as scene units. In this case, the appearance of the quick preview will be more correct.

For example, if you need to create a 2000x2000 mm parquet texture with a board size of 600x60 mm, set the values 200x200 for the Initial Patch size, and 60x6 for the base tile size. When applying to the surface, set the mapping to 2000x2000 mm.

For distributed rendering:

1. Install the Quick Tiles plugin on all render nodes

2. Activation of the plugin on additional computers is not required.

3. Activate the Store to scene function in all QuickTiles materials

4. Done!

Tile set parameters

In this tab, you can add sets of tiles and adjust the parameters of their distribution.

Add bitmap tile set — adds an empty set of bitmap tiles

Add color tile set — adds an empty set of single-color tiles

Noise type — choose between a simple uniform mix of tile sets and a custom map. (see examples below)

None field —adding a custom map for mixing sets.

Add tiles — opens the bitmap tile slicing editor (Slice editor, SE).

Bitmap set— here you can specify the name of the tile set selected in SE.

Probability — the frequency of appearance of tiles of this set in the final texture. Works if more than one set is added.

 — change the order of the set in the stack. The order depends on the position when using a custom distribution map (see the examples below)

 — deleting a set.

 — duplicate the set.

Tile set id's — opens a window for selecting the ID numbers of the pattern tiles to which this set will be distributed. You can select one or more numbers.

For more information, see the section Tile ID

Сolor set — here you can specify the name of a single-color set.

Diffuse, reflect, roughness... — setting the colors of the set channels. If you leave the color completely black, the channel will not be generated.

Examples of how to use custom maps of the distribution of a set of tiles

Example 1. Noise type — regular, three sets of bitmaps.

Example 2. Noise type — Custom map, Gradient, three sets of bitmaps.

You can use any black and white image as a custom map of the sets distribution. In the final texture, the tile sets will be distributed over a range of grayscale colors according to their position on the stack. The lower the set correspond to the darker image area. And vice versa - the upper sets correspond to the light zones of the user distribution map. In the example, you can see that the yellow bricks located at the top of the stack appeared in the lightest part of the gradient.

Example 3. Noise type — Custom map, Radial gradient, three sets of bitmaps.

Example 4. Noise type — Custom map, Clouds noise, three sets of bitmaps.

Slice Editor

The entire process of working in QuickTiles can be divided into three parts: the first — adding the original textures, the second — creating a new layout pattern, and the third — setting up the details and randomizations of the layout.

Slice editor (SE) is a small additional module in which the first stage of work is carried out — adding the original textures and cutting them into separate tiles. Here you can add or change sources, save or extract sets from the library, recognize individual tiles automatically or specify them manually, as well as edit the cutting. It is also possible to import or export the finished slicing

The SE consists of three sections. On the left, in the red zone, there is a library of cuts. Here you can see all the saved and imported cuts by the user, as well as the cuts supplied with the plugin.

In the center, in the yellow zone, is the viewport window, where the selected texture channel and the created slicing are displayed.

On the right, in the blue area, there are settings for slicing and the source texture displayed. Let's see the composition of all the elements in more detail.

Slicing Library

 — search by name and tags

Category — select the cut category

Create set from texture — create a new slicing from a solid texture. Resets the interface and all settings.

Create set from individual tiles — creating the cutting of already pre-cut tiles. In the first version of the plugin, this feature is disabled.

 Icon of the finished cut saved in the library.

Double-click on the icon - loads the slicing and all settings to SE. A right-click will open the context menu.

Duplicate — duplicates a set in the library

Rename — rename a set in a library

Delete — deleting a set

Save to file — export set (when you exporting the slice, the source bitmaps are written to the file, so you do not need to transfer them separately)

Set custom preview — set a custom icon for the selected set. You can use images of any format, the plugin will reduce it and trim to a square.

Set default preview — resets the custom icon to the standard one.

 Slicing and source texture settings

Import tile set — import the ready slicing from a file. When importing, the source bitmaps saved in the slicing file will be unzipped into a folder C:\Users\your_user\QuickTiles\libs

Save (to library) — saving the slicing with the settings to the library. When saving to the library, the original bitmaps are not duplicated, and are loaded from the place where they were originally. Therefore, do not delete or move the original bitmaps used to create the slicing, otherwise the slicing will load empty.

You cannot save or change the source files of the library.

 — tools for creating and editing slicing

 — slicing creation and editing modes

 — Mode 1, the generation of the grid. In this mode, you can create a grid of lines that will be slice a texture and move it away from the edges. Tools and manual editing are not available here.

Preset — choosing a grid pattern — standard or herringbone

Vertical — количество вертикальных линеек

Horizontal — number of vertical lines

Row offset — the distance by which the row is shifted

N row offset — number of offset rows

Usually we need to slice a texture where the original tiles are not under each other, but are offset by a certain distance. For example, bricks are often laid off by 50% every second row, and laminate, with an offset of every second row by 1/3, and every third row by 2/3. The Row offset and N row offset functions allow you to create a grid for such layouts. If you set the offset to 66 and the row number to 2, you will get a grid like in the example. Every second row from the original row will be shifted by 66%, and every first row will be shifted by half of this distance.

Cropping — grid offset from the edges

Top — top edge offset

Bottom — bottom edge offset

Left — left edge offset

Right — right edge offset

 — The second mode is manual editing mode of the grid. In this mode, you can manually shift the slicing lines, adjusting to the imperfections of the texture. Some of the tools are available here.

 — Move tool. Shifts the horizontal rulers along the entire length of the grid, and the vertical ones in the limits of the two closest horizontal ones.

 — Erase tool. Deletes rulers. The horizontal lines are removed along the entire length of the grid, leaving the ones above as vertical lines.

 — Cut tool. Adds a new line. To create a horizontal slice, hover over the nearest vertical ruler and you will see a preview. To create a vertical slice, hover over the existing horizontal one.

Functions Preset, Vertical, Horizontal, Row offset, N row offset and Cropping are blocked in the second and third mode.

Returning to the previous mode from the previous ones will cancel all the changes made.

 — In the third mode you can edit individual tiles manually. Move the finished tiles, rotate them, remove , cut , etc. All the tools are available here.

Context menu of the tools:

Select smaller — selects all tiles of a much smaller size. Useful when cleaning after autoslice.

Select same aspect — selects all tiles with the same aspect ratio

Select same ID — selects all tiles in the same ID

Mark all — disable all tiles (only for the erase tool)

Unmark all — enable all tiles (only for the erase tool)

 — Move tool. Offset the tiles. To select multiple tiles, use Ctrl. You can also use the keyboard arrows to move tiles.

 — Rotate tool. Rotates the tiles around the center.

 — Scale tool. Stretches the tile by the selected side. The rotated tiles will stretch in local coordinates.

 — Erase tool. Turns off the tiles by marking them black. These tiles will not be used in the layout. They can be turned on at any time. Erase+Shift — complete removal of tiles. You can also delete a tile by pressing Delete.

 — Cut tool. Cuts the tile vertically. Cut+Ctrl - cuts horizontally.

 — Create tool. Creates a new tile.

In this mode, copying tiles via Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V works, as well as steps back via Ctrl+Z.

 — Set orient tool. Allows you to set a custom tile orientation.

By default, the orientation of the tiles is set perpendicular to the long side of the container. When you click on the tile once, an arrow will appear showing the default direction.

To change the direction, move the mouse cursor with the left button pressed, just as if you wanted to rotate the tile. At the same time, the direction arrow will rotate in increments of 45 degrees.

To rotate at an arbitrary angle, hold down the Shift.

To align the arrow perpendicular to any face of the container — Alt+Click

To align the arrow in the direction of the specified vertex — Ctrl+Shift+Click

To align the arrow vertically — Ctrl+Click

To reset the direction to default, and remove the arrow — double Click

This function is useful when placing tiles of complex, asymmetrical shape, as well as in cases when it is necessary to observe a certain direction of the tile pattern.

The direction set in the Slicer will correspond to the direction set in the Pattern editor.

*When using the function, it is often necessary to disable random reflection of tiles and switch to Stretch mode in the Bitmap-in-container section.

**After using the Rotate tool, you need to re-set the tile direction.

In the third mode, the drop-down menu works (right mouse button)

Copy - copy the selected tiles. You can copy from one set to another

Paste - paste the copied tiles

Outline - expand or reduce the selected tiles evenly from all sides

Select all - select all tiles

Invert selected - invert selection

Select smaller - select all tiles significantly smaller in size than the current one

Select same ID - select all tiles in the same ID as the current one (same function - double click on the tile)

Select same aspect - select all tiles in the same aspect as the current one

IMPORTANT: create tiles so that the blue area overlaps the tile surface and does not go into the seam.

The following parameters are not dependent on the slicing mode.

Texture placement

Vertical offset — vertical offset of the texture

Horizontal offset — horizontal offset of the texture

Rotate — texture rotation

Plain texture — enable this option if you want to randomly distribute a texture inside the containers that initially has no seams, such as marble or granite slabs, concrete, stone, wood, etc.Other slicing settings are not required in this case and will be blocked.

Tiling vertical — indicates that the texture is seamless vertically

Tiling horizontal — indicates that the texture is seamless horizontally

Setup ID — here you can set the tile ID directly in the slicer. This is convenient for distributing complex sets with tiles of various shapes, colors and sizes, such as Origami, Trapeze or Tiara.

Double-click on a tile will select all tiles in the same ID

Texture scaling

Reduces the original texture to 12%, 25% or 50%.

Often, a large size of the original texture is not required, and only slows down the plugin. This function allows you to reduce the size of the source files in the process of work, and does not require saving and storing separate sets of smaller textures.

Options

Gaps — specifies the width of the gripped seams. Set this value so that the red area of the tile slightly overlap the neighboring one, or less if you want to reduce the original seam.

In Mode 1 and 2, Gaps adjusts the width of the rulers. When switching to mode 3, gaps between tiles appear in the area captured by the rulers.

View alpha — setting the transparency of the preview of the finished tiles.

Numbering — puts a number on each tile. Helps to find and modify certain tiles in the final layout.

IMPORTANT: For the best construction of the final texture, QuickTiles uses mixing the seams of the source. The Gaps parameter controls the width of the captured seam, and at the same time the depth of the tiles overlapping each other. Therefore, it is very important to set the value of this parameter correctly. For more information, see the description of the Gap blend parameter, in the Pattern parameters.

Autoslice button — opens the automatic tile recognition window. Read more about this below.

Clear grid button — resets the grid settings in slicing mode 1 and 2.

Input maps — slots for adding a source of texture (drag-and-drop copying works)

Diffuse — a slot for adding diffuse texture.

Reflect — a slot for the reflection texture.

Roughness — slot for textures of glossiness or roughness of reflections.

Displacement — a slot for the height texture.

32bit .exr or .tif textures are recognized, but the plugin outputs 8bit anyway. In this case, the work may slow down. Better use the original 8bit textures. In future versions, an option that includes a 32-bit process for displacement will most likely appear.

Bump — a slot for black-and-white textures of small bump.

Normal — a slot for the Normal bump texture. In this slot, you should not install anything other than normal maps, since the plugin uses a very specific algorithm to work with normals.

Mask — a slot for the black-and-white mask channel. Tiles should always be white, seams — black. The texture from this slot is not passed directly to the material, but is used for automatic tile recognition, as well as for correct randomization of tiles inside QuickTiles, or for replacing the seam texture.

To remove a texture from a slot, use right-click on the slot and select Clear

In the color picker to the right of the texture name, you can choose any color if you do not need a texture on this channel

The eye, the symbol of the channel displayed in the viewport.

And when you click on the pencil, the texture color editing window opens.

By clicking on the pencil, in the Normal channel, you can adjust the angle of rotation of the normals, as well as invert the channels.

For example: you will need to invert the green channel if the original normals are made in OpenGL format. For more information, see Normals workflow.

Note 1. When adding a texture to the Diffuse slot, the plugin recognizes and automatically loads the other channels, if the textures are in the same folder, and have the same name as diffuse, and the corresponding channel label. For example: brick137_diffuse, brick137_glossiness, brick137_heigth.

Note 2. After the initial channel recognition, you can remove or replace any of the textures (even diffuse), re-recognition will not occur. To re-recognize the channels, clear all the slots except diffuse manually and add the texture to diffuse again

Search — Slice library search options

Category — material category

Tags — any words associated with the stored slicing

Done button — accepting the slicing result and closing the slice editor window WITHOUT saving the slicing to the library. The slicing will be saved locally in this material. You can return to editing it at any time by clicking on its icon in the Tile set parameters section.

After pressing the Done button, the original texture is sliced, and the tiles are saved in RAM. The larger the source textures, the longer it can take. If you changed the original textures (for example, color, or brightness), in order for the changes to appear in QuickTiles, you need to open the settings of this set again in the Slice editor and click Done.

Cancel button — cancels the settings made. If you accidentally opened SE and did not make any changes, click Cancel. Then the window will close and the previous slicing will remain unchanged. This will be much faster than if you click the Done button.

Tiles auto-recognition

If there is a mask channel in the texture set, then when you click on the Autoslice button, the plugin will automatically cut the texture, without unnecessary questions.

By default, it will try to recognize the rotation of individual tiles. However, with square tiles it turns out badly.

If you don't like the result of slicing, press the Autoslice button while holding down Shift. The texture will be cut without taking into account the rotation of the tiles.

If there is no mask channel in the set, the plugin will try to create it from the channel in the viewport. In this case, it will offer you an additional window.

For gluing tiles that go beyond the edges, an error factor is used. It is installed in the Gaps spinner. The larger the texture and seams, the larger the value should be. All auto-recognition settings are saved, so if the extreme tiles are not properly glued together the first time, change the coefficient and try again. After recognition, adjust the Gaps parameter to match the width of the original seam.

In this window, a black-and-white mask is generated based on the selected channel. The tiles should be white, the seams black. The mask should be as neat as possible in the area of the seams, but there may be some black spots inside the tiles, this will not affect the quality. As a result, the user's task is to bring the mask as close as possible to the state shown in the image.

Details — the level to which the texture details are smoothed. The lower the value, the less anti-aliasing, and the more original details remain.

Threshold — the brightness of the gray point in which all the brighter colors of the original texture will become white, and darker-black.

H offset and V offset - edge trimming. If the edge in the image is solid white, without gaps, this can cause a significant increase in the autoslice time. In this case, it is recommended to trim the borders to the seams.

Invert — inverting white and black. If the tiles are black and the seams are white, no recognition will occur. The tiles should always be white

R, G, B, RGB — when trying to recognize a colored texture, you can select a separate Red, Green, or Blue channel, or an RGB composite. When trying to recognize from the Normal Bump channel, it is best to select the Blue channel

Find rotate — an experimental function that forces recognition to find rotation of the tile. It is still under development and presented in the interface for tests.

IMPORTANT: Intersecting tiles are not recognized in this version of the plugin.

Tip: For maximum recognition quality, offset the texture so that there are no too small pieces of tiles on the edges. In the example above, the texture on the left shows small parts of the bricks sticking out in the left part of the viewport. To improve recognition, move the texture to the right so that the bricks are roughly divided in half.

Adding sets of individual tiles

In QuickTiles version 1.1.0.0, the function of adding sets of pre-cut tiles is greatly simplified. This feature will be especially relevant for interior visualization, where sets of individual floorboards are often used.

To add a set of pre-cut tiles, follow three simple steps:
1. Click on the Create set from individual tiles button or switch Preset to Individual tiles
2. Add the first tile of your set to the Diffuse channel
3. Add or drag the first tiles of the corresponding channels to the other channels

To correctly recognize the tiles of the set, two conditions must be met.

First: the files of each channel should be put in a separate folder. The plugin will lay out in one channel all the files that it finds in the specified folder.

Secondly: the beginning of the channel file names of the same tile should match, and the number should be at the end, for example BrickRed_dif_1 and BrickRed_bump_1, etc.

Viewport window

1 — name of the slice field. If you call slicing from the library, the name of the slicing will appear here with a different sequence number. This is done in order not to accidentally overwrite the slices saved in the library. If you want to save the slicing over the existing one in the library, just specify an identical name.

2 — number of tiles created

3 — the number of resulting aspect groups

4 — number of selected tiles

5 — texture size

6 — bitmap parameters

7 — the borders of the tile in which it will be placed in the container, ID1

8 — the borders of the tile in which it will be placed in the container, ID2

9 — disabled tiles are indicated in black

Normals workflow

Historically, there are two main types of normal maps: DirectX and OpenGL. At first glance, they are very similar, but there is one significant difference - the inverted vertical channel (Green). Compare two variants of a convex brick:

Different versions of normals are used in different software and render engines. Since 3DMax, Vray and Corona always use the DirectX version, QuickTiles is also adapted for them.

And this is a very important moment! The plugin performs a large number of transformations with normals, and they will be incorrect if you do not correct the source texture. Here's what happens if you use rotation and random reflection with normals in QuickTiles.

As you can see, the right version with the DirectX source texture looks correct, and in the left (OpenGL) part of the tiles seem to be turned inside out. To solve this problem, we have added to the Slicer the ability to invert channels or even rotate the normals by any angle (in the HSV dialog). Therefore, if you encounter the problem of incorrect generation of normals in the plugin, first of all try to flip vertical channel in the source texture.

Pattern parameters

In this tab, you can select a pattern for the layout and configure its parameters.

 - choosing a channel for previews

 - disabling automatic preview updates

Turning off autoupdate previews SIGNIFICANTLY speeds up the setup of the material.

 - manual preview update button

 — switching preview channels

 — opens a large preview

 — selecting one of the simple presets

Pattern editor button — opens the window of the additional module for creating and editing patterns (see the section Pattern editor)

Base tile size H — width of base tiles

Base tile size V — height of the base tiles

Gap width H — horizontal width of the procedural seam

Gap width V — vertical width of the procedural seam

To save the original seam, set the size of the procedural seam to 0.

When working with polygonal patterns, only the Gap width H parameter works, which in this case is responsible for the width of all seams.

The most important point of working in Quick Tiles is to understand the formation of the size of the pattern. The layout of the bricks can be absolutely various, and it is absolutely impossible to set the size of each brick. Setting the size of the entire pattern at once is also extremely inconvenient, since we usually know the size of individual tiles. Therefore, in QT, the size of all bricks is calculated based on the size of the Base tile. In the Pattern Editor, you can assign a Base tile yourself, and the plugin will automatically calculate the size of all the other tiles based on its size and the width of the seam.

 и  — includes a proportional change in the size of the tile and seam

Gap blend — original gap mixing depth

To preserve the maximum quality of the created textures, QuickTiles not only captures the original seams (see Slice editor), but also mixes them with a small gradient. To enable mixing, the size of the procedural gap must be equal to 0.

If the Gap Blend values are too large, the substrate may appear due to the original seams. To fix this, either reduce the strength of the Gap Blend, or set the color/texture of the substrate (see Procedural gap section) close to the color of the seam. This must be done on all generated channels.

Wave length — the length of the pattern wave effect

Amount — the strength of the pattern wave effect

Tiles often do not lie perfectly flat, especially for floor coverings. This effect adds a large wave that is common to all elements.

Circular — the inclusion of a circular layout. Plugin will arrange the tiles in a circle, observing the selected pattern as much as possible. However, due to the different length of the lines, there will still be an offset.

Deform Gaps — plugin will try to arrange the tiles in a circle, deforming the seams and keeping the tiles rectangular, just like in real life.

Deform Tile — the plugin will try to arrange the tiles in a circle, deforming the tiles themselves as if they are rubber. This feature is experimental, and it doesn't always work perfectly.

Center — the size of the central layout area where the regular layout will be used

Pattern Editor

Pattern editor (PE) is a small additional module in which the second stage of work in QuickTiles is carried out — setting and editing the pattern of the tile layout.

The PE consists of three sections. On the left, in the red zone, there is a pattern library. All the patterns saved and imported by the user, as well as those supplied with the plugin, are displayed here.

In the center, in the yellow zone, is the viewport window, where the current pattern and its settings are displayed.

On the right, in the blue zone, there are the pattern settings and auxiliary functions. Let's analyze the composition of all the elements in more detail.

Pattern library

 — search by name and tags.

Category — select pattern category.

Create rectangular pattern — clears viewport to create a new rectangular pattern

Import polygonal pattern — importing a polygon pattern (for more information, see the section with the same name)

 Icon of the pattern, saved in the library.

Double-click on the icon loads the pattern and all its settings in PE. Right-click will open the context menu.

Duplicate — duplicates the pattern in the library

Rename — renaming a pattern in the library

Delete — deleting a pattern

The patterns included with the plugin cannot be deleted

Pattern Settings

New from bitmap — not active in the first version. This feature will be implemented later

Save (to library) — saves the created pattern to the library

You cannot save or change the source library files

 Move tool — moves selected in the viewport tile. It impossible to overlay tiles.

 Create tool — creates a new tile by stretching. The tile is created in the selected ID. By default — ID1

 Set orient tool. Allows you to set a custom tile orientation.

By default, the orientation of the tiles is set perpendicular to the long side of the container. When you click on the tile once, an arrow will appear showing the default direction.

To change the direction, move the mouse cursor with the left button pressed, just as if you wanted to rotate the tile. At the same time, the direction arrow will rotate in increments of 45 degrees.

To rotate at an arbitrary angle, hold down the Shift.

To align the arrow perpendicular to any face of the container — Alt+Click

To align the arrow in the direction of the specified vertex — Ctrl+Shift+Click

To align the arrow vertically — Ctrl+Click

To reset the direction to default, and remove the arrow — double Click

This function is useful when placing tiles of complex, asymmetrical shape, as well as in cases when it is necessary to observe a certain direction of the tile pattern.

The direction set in the Slicer will correspond to the direction set in the Pattern editor.

*Using this tool is especially useful when working with polygonal patterns of complex shape, where the plugin may mistakenly determine the "direction" of tiles.

Extract aspect groups — opens the slicing library (Slice Editor) and creates several tiles of the same aspect (with the same aspect ratio) as the tiles in the selected slicing

This feature is very useful when you need to create a wild stone texture from a particular source, where the aspect ratios of the tiles are very different

Fill gaps — the plugin fills an empty viewport area by copying an already created template. All non-multiple zones are filled with 1x1 cell tiles

Select base tile — assigns a base tile for calculating the size of the pattern.

Size H и Size V — the number of viewport cells (the pattern may be non-square)

Set tiling box — set the tiling point for the polygonal pattern. It is located at the intersection of the horizontal and vertical repetition lines of the pattern (see the video in the Polygonal pattern import section)

Tile ID

 Assigning tile IDs (for more information, see Tile ID)

Search — search parameters for a pattern in the library

Category — pattern category

Tags — any words associated with the stored slicing

Done button — accepting the result and closing the pattern editor window WITHOUT saving the pattern to the library. The pattern will be saved locally in the material. You can return to editing at any time by clicking the Pattern editor button again. Be careful. If you select any of the simple pattern templates in Mat. editor, the created pattern will be deleted.

Cancel button — changes the settings you made.

Viewport window

1 — field for setting the pattern name. If you call a pattern from the library, a name with a different sequence number will appear here. This is done in order not to accidentally overwrite the patterns saved in the library. If you want to save a pattern on top of an existing one in the library, just enter an identical name.

2 — number of tile IDs in the pattern

3 — number of resulting aspect groups

4 — number of tiles in the pattern

5 — base tile is marked with hatching

Texture formation mechanism

In this section, we talk about the internal mechanisms of texture formation in QuickTiles, and why it is often not square.

As you already know, the texture formation in QT is based on the size of the base patch (1), the pattern (2), the width of the base texture tile (3), and the seams (4).

However, due to the fact that the tiles in the pattern can have any size, and the seams must be the same everywhere, and it is also necessary to correlate the size of the base tile (3), seam (4) and patch (1), it turns out that it is impossible to get exactly to the specified size and at the same time generate a seamless texture. You will either have to make the base tile smaller, or change the final size of the texture piece.

And since the exact size of the brick and the gap seems more important to us, we added a "Resulting size" column, in which QT shows what size of a piece of texture will be obtained with the corresponding pattern, as well as the size of the seam and the base tile. The final size always tends to the specified size, as well as to the square shape. However, this does not always work.

Why isn't the texture square?

When creating a texture, QT works in the following sequence.

1. First of all, it takes a given pattern. The pattern is always taken as a whole piece, the one that is set in the Pattern Editor.

2. After that, the plugin calculates the size of the pattern horizontally and vertically, taking into account the size of the base tile, seams, and all the specified randomizations.

3. Last of all, QuickTiles compares the resulting pattern size and the desired size, and repeats the whole pattern as many times as it can fit into the specified size.

It is important to understand that any pattern is square. But it can change its shape to a rectangular one if the aspect ratio of the base tile of the pattern and the base tile set in Mat.editor differ.

For example: we have a simple pattern with a base tile size of 1:2. With the same aspect ratio in the base texture tile, the final patch will be square.

However, if we set the size of the base tile in mat.editor to a wider size, for example 1:5, together with the base tile, the entire pattern will stretch and become 2.5 times wider.

If such distortions are insignificant, QT will give a high-quality result without any problems. However, if the base tile of the pattern is vertical, for example, in the aspect ratio of 3:1, and the base tile of the texture is horizontal, 1:6, the resulting pattern will be too elongated, and errors will appear. Therefore, in such cases, we recommend making a more similar pattern.

Well, in the end, due to the fact that the pattern itself is repeated in the patch only in its entirety, and often has a non-square shape, the final patch also ceases to be square.

Suppose the size of the pattern is 123x87 cm, and the desired size of the patch is 500x500 cm. The width of the whole pattern will fit (500/123 = 4,065) 4 times, and the height (500/87 = 5.74) 6 times. Therefore, the size of the final patch will be 492x522 cm (123*4 = 492 and 87*6 = 522).

Polygonal pattern import

With the help of the Quick Tiles plugin, you can distribute sets of tiles into patterns of any shape. You can create rectangular patterns directly in the Pattern editor, and import patterns of more complex shapes.

We didn't create the polygon pattern editor in the plugin itself, because we still wouldn't be able to give you the full power of the tools of 3d max, or any other vector editor.

This short video shows the import method in version 1.1.0.1.

The old export/import method is suitable for more complex patterns where the tiling point does not coincide with the edges of one of the tiles.

The old import algorithm (described below) is available via Click+Shift.

1. Create a small piece of the desired pattern. It should be a flat Editable Poly, with no internal mesh.

2. Find the seamless part of your pattern that suits you according to the number of tiles. This area should be close to the square shape. In the example, I highlighted it with a red rectangle. Four hexagons in height and width will be enough for me.

3. Remove all the excess, not cutting the whole shapes, but allowing them to go beyond the boundaries of the area.

4. The resulting pattern should be seamless.

5. Now create a Plain, without additional edges, and align it to the left, upper edge of your pattern. It should overlap the pattern tiling zone, as in the example.

6. Attach your pattern to this plain.

7. All done! Export your pattern — File/Export/Export selected. Имя файла не имеет значение. Save as type: QuickTiles pattern (*.qtp)

11. Open the Pattern editor and click Import polygonal pattern button. In the window that opens, select your pattern.

12. As a result, you will get a completely seamless pattern of any shape. You can configure the options you need in the menu on the right.

Tile ID

Tile ID is a technology for implementing tile sets into certain pattern containers.

Each tile in the pattern and each set of tiles in the Tile set parameters section has a Tile ID number. By default, ID 0 is assigned in the pattern, and the default set is distributed to all IDs at once. To set the exact match, just set the necessary IDs for the tiles in the pattern, and then for the sets. A total of 40 IDs are available.

In addition, you can assign an ID for each tile separately inside the set directly in the slicer. This greatly simplifies the work if you have several tiles of different sizes or colors on the original texture.

The general ID of the set is the dominant one, and when assigned, it will overwrite the IDs of all tiles assigned in the slicer.

One set can be distributed to several different IDs at once. And one tile in the pattern can have only one ID.

ID0 — white tile — universal ID. Any other ID will be allocated to it.

Tile random parameters

In this section we have the containers’ shapes randomization parameters.

Tile width min — minimum tile width (as a percentage)

Tile width max — maximum tile width (as a percentage)

Tile height min — minimum tile height (as a percentage)

Tile height max — maximum tile height (as a percentage)

Height randomization by tile — sets a random height value to each tile

Height randomization by row — sets a random height value to each row

Rows’ height randomization only works with linear patterns. This means that all tiles of a patter’s row initially are the same height.

Rotation — random tile rotation

Position — moves tiles to a random distance in a random corner

Corner offset — random offset of tiles’ corners. When used with polygonal patterns, it offsets each vertex used while generating that template

Corner fillet — softens the corners. When used with polygonal patterns, it softens each vertex used while generating that template. If some vertexes are places to close too each other, the effect will be removed from all corners

Tilt parameters

The Tilt group of parameters tilt tiles in a horizontal plane. These only work with the Displacement map.

Tilt left min — left tile side tilt

Tilt right min — right tile side tilt

Tilt rotation — tile tilt rotation

Tilt randomization — turns on randomization of tiles’ tilt and tilt rotation

Tilt left min + randomization — minimum left tile side tilt

Tilt left max + randomization — maximum left tile side tilt

Tilt right min + randomization — minimum right tile side tilt

Tilt right max + randomization — maximum right tile side tilt

*Tilting values fall within the range from 0 to 100, where 0 is an absolutely black color, and 100 — absolutely white. If you apply tilting to an existing Displace map, we recommend you use 50 as an initial value, and then buildup your tilt by changing this value. For example, to make your tiles randomly tilt a little bit, you need to set the values in the range from 40 to 60.

*Tilting is applied softer, with semitranslucency, to an existing Displace map. This is why its efficiency depends a lot on the source map’s brightness.

*The effect is absent if all group parameters are set to 0. In case any of the parameters is more than 0, the effect is enabled, and all the other parameters set to 0 will be shown as black.

In some cases, when creating tiles with an even surface and enabling tilt parameters for them, you can see artifacts that look like stairs. This unwanted effect appears because the bitmaps didn’t have the necessary bit count. To get an even and a smooth gradient, you need a gradient with 32 bits of the color’s depth. Unfortunately, this technology wasn’t implemented in the first plugin version (because of 3dmax limitations). To avoid this situation or at least significantly decrease its visibility, make sure to use the maximum tilt range. In the first example picture, the tilting range is set from 40 to 60, and in the second picture – from 5 to 95.

Edge distortion

In this section, we have the uneven edge effect settings.

Strength — the strength of unevenness

Size — the size of unevenness

Be careful when using this effect, an insignificant size of unevenness can reduce the system’s productivity a lot.

Bitmap-in-container 

This section contains settings of the bitmaps inside containers behavior.

Position Stretch — plugin embeds a tile into a container by stretching

Position Crop + Cropping Side — plugin embeds the tile in the container on the short side with clipping the edges that protrude beyond the container border

Position Crop + Cropping Center — plugin embeds the tile in the container on the short side with the preservation of the seams, cutting out the center of the tile (set by default)

If the original tiles and containers are close in aspect ratio, you need to switch the setting to Stretch mode. Otherwise, artifacts may appear.

Use aspect groups — turn on the distribution of the tiles of the original set in the pattern, according to the aspect groups (aspect ratio).

Aspect groups — groups of tiles united by a similar ratio of the length of the horizontal and vertical sides. Aspect groups are calculated by default for patterns and sets of bitmap tiles.

Random mirror H — random display of bitmaps horizontally

Random mirror V — random display of bitmaps vertically

Random rotation — random rotation of bitmaps in the container

Scale — bitmap scale in the container

Procedural gap

In the Maps & colors section, you can load a bitmap or set the color that will be displayed on the procedural seams and the gaps between the tiles.

1. The substrate channel name

2. Color of the channel picker

3. Loading the bitmap

4. Transparency of the bitmap relative to the channel color

Use mask — applies a tile mask, removing the original seams

Scale — the scale of the bitmap of the substrate

Gap shape — parameters for adjusting the shape of the procedural seam

Side height — the height of the seam at the edges of the tiles

Center height — the height of the seam in the center

Pinch/Bubble — changing the shape of the seam curve

The shape of the procedural seam is applied on the Displacement, Bump, and Normal channels.

When you enable the shape parameters of the procedural seam, it overlaps the substrate.

With different widths of the horizontal and vertical seams, the shape of the procedural seam will be generated based on the minimum width

If the resolution is too low or the seam size is too small, artifacts may occur.

If the final seam size is less than 5 px, the shape is not generated

The parameters of the height of the edges and the center are relative, so it is recommended to configure them with the enlarged preview enabled on the corresponding channel.

Tile channel settings

This section is responsible for setting randomization and editing the color of the tile texture.

Identical for all channels settings:

Level — uniform change the level of all channel tiles

Random — random change the level of all channel tiles

Value — changes brightness of tiles

Hue — changes color of tiles

Saturation — changes saturation of tiles

Mask — enables the use of a mask. When this option is enabled, QuickTiles will change or randomize only the white areas of the mask (i.e., the tile area, no seam)

Settings unique to Bump (Grey) and Displacement channels:

Texture blur — blurs the tiles texture

Edge smooth — applies a smooth gradient to the edge of the tile to create a rounded shape.
Experimental function. Artifacts are possible.

Settings unique to Bump (Grey) and Displacement channels:

Texture blur — blurs the tiles texture

Edge size — depth of the beveled edge

Smooth — blurring of the beveled edge

Height — height of the beveled edge

Pinch/Bubble — edge shape:
1 — flat edge
less than 1 — convex edge
more than 1 — concave edge

Workflow optimization

All operations performed on QuickTiles are differ in complexity and the processor resources required to perform them. The more parallel settings are enabled in the plugin, the longer it will take to process new commands.

To optimize the speed of operation, we recommend that you consider the following points:

1. In the process of setting up the test material, use a small preset size of a piece of texture. By default, it is set to 200x200cm, but you can use a smaller size.

2. The smaller the source texture and the fewer channels it has, the faster the plugin will work. Do not use large textures in 4K resolution or higher, unless necessary. Do not use 32 or 16-bit textures. This will slow things down, and the plugin will still convert them to 8-bit.

3. When making settings, do not keep the large preview window open unnecessarily. It creates a texture in a large size, and therefore slows down the work further.

The best option would be to turn off the auto-update preview, and update it manually if necessary.

4. When working with the displacement, regardless of what data you transmit to the plugin, it converts them to 16 bits. This is required for higher quality and smoother shape gradients. However, it is desirable that the map be quite contrasting, but with the preservation of details. If this is not the case, edit the source in Photoshop or using HSV in a slicer.

5. Also, when working with the displacement in Corona Render, we recommend adding the CoronaDisplacement modifier and increasing the quality to 2 pixels.

6. The Corner fillet and Tile edge distortion size settings complicate the shape of the tile and can slow down the speed of the plugin.

7. Randomizing bitmaps is a rather time-consuming operation. Add it at the end of the material setup.

8. After you finish setting up the material, do the tests at a low resolution of 2K — if you need to make changes, the texture update in 2K will be much faster. After finishing the settings, set the working size and resolution.

9. Keep in mind that in order to work out the mixing of the original seams, or to generate the shape of the procedural seam, the seam must have a sufficient number of pixels of the final texture. If you are dissatisfied with the appearance of the seams, increase the output resolution.

10. When setting the final resolution of a texture, we recommend that you use on the following ratios of the texture physical size and its resolution:

200х200 cm — 2K — normal quality, 4K — excellent quality.

400х400 cm — 4K — normal quality, 8K — excellent quality.

1000x1000 cm — 8K — normal quality, 16K — excellent quality.

11. After you finish working on the texture, be sure to turn on Store to temp (for storing and working locally) or Store to scene (for transferring a scene to another computer). Quick Tiles will update the texture and save it to your hard drive, in a special file, from which it will load the next time you open 3d max. Otherwise, every time you open the program, the texture will be regenerated, which can take a significant amount of time.