[Josephus Holt]

I'm getting close to starting applying materials to the surfaces (still have a few things to finish up in the model), and first want to tackle the roof tiles. I'm inclined to model the tile geometry in Rhino and use a plug-in to nudge the placement/rotation of each tile for a more random look. You will notice in the roof tile image that the colors on each tile vary, including some variation within the tile color itself. This is my first 3d exterior project so I'm at a loss how to texture such a quantity of roof tiles to get that effect without spending six months to do it. Will someone please help me?

[Bubbaloo]

Holy crap, that's a lot of roof to cover! Have you checked with the mxm gallery? I think I recall seeing a nice displacement texture of that sort.

[Maximus3D]

Yea it's a impressive amount of roof to cover but you will not get good results with displacement for rooftiles like that, especially at the edges. Something like that should and would be best to model. I know you don't wanna hear that but i cannot really recommend displacement for your roof.

/ Max

[Josephus Holt]

I don't mind modeling it and had pretty much decided that's the best way to go...don't think that will take too long in Rhino, but it's the material mapping I'm worried about, perhaps needlessly?

I've never done this before, but I could create a repeatable area of maybe 100 tiles, and if I decide that there are maybe 6 different color tiles, I would create 6 MXM's, and then go through the tile field and assign them randomly. I could then copy/paste that 100-tile field and delete/cut what extends beyond the roof plane. I can't think of an easier/faster way to do it, and likely this method will maybe take half a day?

[iker]

I'd definitely try with displacement...I think it can be easy, just planes and texture mapping... and half filleted cilinders with some bump for the cement.
You can even use an opacity map with the new "stacked layers" to make the edge

...a quick previews with a couple of displacement textures I found in google images





...Rhino shaded view



..btw/ the preview render is not Maxwell, Maxwell displacement is much better.

[KurtS]

very nice examples Iker, very convincing!

[iker]

Thanks KurtS!

Here goes the texture map if someone wants to experiment...


I think it's easy to do your own roof tiles style by modeling a few planar roof tiles and then rendering a Z-Depth map and then using it as displacement map.
And I also think is even easier to map the displacement texture than to model the whole roof like the one Josephus is showing here.

[Tea_Bag]

Thanks iker!! great example!!

[Josephus Holt]

hey iker...those look surprisingly good. thx much for posting. although for this project I decided to go ahead and model the tiles as I wanted some random rotation and lifting with grout, although I suppose with changes to the displacement map one could get pretty decent results. oh man, so much to do!