Tiling planes let you quickly sculpt or paint a mesh with a seamless, repeating pattern. You can use tiling planes to efficiently cover large surface areas, or easily extract a texture map of the repeated sculpt detail. Once you've created a tiled texture map, use it as a paint layer or a stencil for painting and sculpting, and delete the tiling plane when you no longer need it.
Image courtesy of Jesus Bibian, Jr.
To create a tiling plane
- Select Create > Tiling Plane from the main menu bar.
- In the Create Tiling Plane window that appears, specify the size and orientation of the plane you want, then click OK.
By default, the tiling plane is oriented toward the plane defined by the X and Z axes. Until you sculpt or paint on it, the tiling plane appears identical to the normal plane template available from the Create > Mesh menu.
Just like any other mesh, you can press Shift + D to subdivide the tiling plane and get more detail for sculpting.
Depending on the options you specify, Mudbox also creates a second plane in the Object List called Extraction Target. This plane is locked by default, and is intended to be used as the target model if you later choose to extract the details from your tiling plane as a texture map.
Tip: You can sculpt undercuts and overhangs onto your tiling plane and extract the detail as a vector displacement map. See Extract a vector displacement map. - Use any Paint or Sculpt tool to modify the tiling plane. When you release each stroke, Mudbox applies the stroke to each tile of plane.
Tip: Set the number of tiles defined for your tiling plane using the Repeating Tiles settings in the Create Tiling Plane window. The default plane is 3 tiles by 3 tiles. - (Optional) When finished working with your tiling plane, you can select it from the Object List and press Delete to remove it.