Vizpark releases Omnitiles
Vizpark has released Omnitiles, a new tool for generating seamlessly tileable texture maps of ground and wall materials, including tiles, mosaics, parquet flooring, cobbles and crazy paving.
The software, which generates maps up to 32K in size, was previously a 3ds Max plugin, but is now available as a standalone application with a live link to Photoshop.
Create complex repeating tile and brick patterns with randomised materials
Omnitiles enables users to design complex repeating patterns for ground and wall materials – particularly geometric patterns like tiles and parquet, but also more organic shapes like cobblestones.
The basic 2D forms are created using a grid-based pattern editor, then multitextures with randomised colours are assigned to shapes, or to groups of shapes.
If you don’t want to create designs from scratch, there are 80 pattern presets, ranging from tiles and bricks to… um, Pac-Man, plus 25 readymade multitexture sets representing common flooring types.
The software comes with its own real-time 2D preview, and integrates directly with Photoshop, making it possible to export and edit texture maps without saving files to disk first.
As well as the diffuse map, Omnitiles’ edge map system can be used to generate bump, height or displacement maps.
In the demos, the results look similar to those achievable in a tool like Substance Designer, but using a more conventional, non-node-based workflow that may appeal more to less technically minded artists.
Pricing and availability
Omnitiles is available for Windows 7 and above only. Officially, it’s still a beta release.
Perpetual licences of the software have MSRPs of between €149 and €499 (around $185 to $620), depending on your annual revenue. At the time of posting, Vizpark is offering a launch discount.