How to make a seamless texture (Including diffuse, normal, height, and ao maps)

Introduction

I will be going over how to turn a raw image into a tileable and seamless texture which we will be converting into normal, height, and ao maps. Just note this is actually very easy despite what you think, even if you don’t know how to use photoshop you will be able to do this. If you have any cameras it will be more helpful but any phone will do as long as it has basic functions

Step 1: How to get your raw texture

First, you will need to find something you will be taking a picture of. Once you have done that, try to find a good spot.

Examples of what a good spot for a texture is

  1. Even lighting with minimal shadows (you can adjust it later in photoshop but try to keep the lighting even) also no reflections or anything
  2. You won’t be able to make textures that are translucent but you can try putting something behind it so you can’t see the background (put a dark piece of clothing behind it, etc)
  3. Make sure what you’re taking a picture of is better repeatable (large spots in a corner like sticks, large leaves, and more are bad) Also this doesn’t apply if your texture is like a leafy ground
Example


The reason you might not want to have sticks is it will be harder to make seamless in photoshop and easily look repeated because of how large it cover up the screen and you want a texture that is mostly uniform (small leaves scattered evenly across the texture is fine)

Settings for capturing your texture

  1. Make sure to set a high f-stop if you can (If you’re on a phone, just try to get the texture to be focused and not blurry)
  2. Focal length doesn’t matter too much but make sure it doesn’t look distorted or anything (I recommend 40-50 but just as long as it isn’t distorted)
  3. Use auto white balance but if that doesn’t work, try using shade or cloudy (if you’re on a phone you can always adjust it later in photoshop)

Step 2: Making your texture seamless

Make sure you have a photoshop installed or you can use photopea (come with all the tools you need and isn’t required to install)

First, load in your texture like below

Example

You will need to crop it so it’s square and if you don’t know how, I will show you

How to crop it


Click on the crop tool then click and drag on your texture until it’s a square (for example mines is 720x960, then I cropped it so it’s 720x720)
you can also drag the selection where it crops if you want to choose a different spot for it to crop since maybe theres like a stick in a corner that you don’t want (press enter to crop it)

Then you will offset which will make it seamless since it basically cuts it into 4 parts and aligns it with all the corners so all the sides align with each other for it to tile

How to offset


Click on Filter > Other > Offset

Then you will want to divide your pixel width by 2 and enter it into the bars (you can do different offsets but just make sure it’s not too close to the edge and try to pick a offset that makes it less noticeable that it’s repeating when you tile it) also it won’t affect if it’s seamless or not, remember it just aligns the corners so they are able to tile

Example


just used a different image so you can see it being offsetted easier

Now will be probably the hardest part (still very easy, it just takes time but it’s actually the most fun part imo)

You will now be making the hard edges from the offset seamless now. Heres a couple things to note when starting

  1. Try to take your time as much as you can and do not rush

  2. Make sure to be extra careful when you get closer to the edges (since that’s the part that makes the texture seamless)

  3. Try sampling the clone brush from a lot of different spots since it will look obviously photoshopped/cloned if you only sampled the clone brush from one area and patched the whole texture from that spot

Now to use the clone brush, go to the top right corner and search clone brush and click to select it

Example

Once you have done that, press alt + LMB in an area you want to clone your texture from

You can change brush settings here (also some settings I use)

Some settings I like to use


You can set any brush size as you need but generally 30-50 is pretty good (or bigger for bigger areas where theres dark or light spots but I’d suggest using a smaller brush like 75 pixels and slowly patching that area up)

I don’t really have any tips on how to do it, it’s pretty much self explanatory but if theres a seam where it cuts off a leaf/detail off then try sampling it from a different spot of the leaf and patch it back up so it looks like a normal leaf again (if it’s a too big of a leaf and it’s noticeable then I’d suggest just sampling it from a different area with smaller leaves and cover that big leaf up)

If you have any questions, feel free to reply below

(Also I will be making a tutorial on how to make different maps soon but I assume most people are using this for roblox so it should be fine)

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