Anyone who has worked with tiling textures has probably run into the same problem.
A texture may look fine on a small surface, but once it covers a larger area, the same patterns begin to repeat. On materials like dirt, grass, rock, or terrain, those repeated details quickly become noticeable.
In a recent tutorial, Hoj Dee explains how to reduce that repetition using Cell Bombing, a material technique that introduces subtle variation without changing the original texture.
I first heard of "removing texture repetition with Cell bombing" in one of Unreal Engine tech talks . Then saw it in action in the City Sample project. I have a tutorial where I go over how to create it step-by-step in Unreal Engine materials. Link in comments for anyone interested.
by u/JustHoj in UnrealEngine5
Cell Bombing uses a Voronoi texture to shift different parts of the main texture. Since each cell shifts the texture a little differently, the repeated pattern becomes much harder to notice.
The effect removes most of the visible repetition, but it also introduces a new problem.
The hard edges of the Voronoi cells can become visible across the material. To smooth those transitions, Hoj Dee blends between the original texture and the shifted version using the Voronoi alpha channel.
Each cell can also use a slightly different scale, offset, and rotation. This adds even more variation, making neighboring areas look less alike while keeping the overall material consistent.
Rotation needs one extra step when working with normal maps.
According to Hoj Dee, the normal map has to follow the same rotation as the base texture. Otherwise, the lighting will no longer match the surface and the effect becomes noticeable.
Compared to traditional Texture Bombing, Cell Bombing offers a good balance between visual quality and performance.
It is slightly more expensive than a regular tiling material, but considerably lighter than Texture Bombing with Parallax Occlusion Mapping.
The technique works particularly well on organic materials such as dirt, grass, moss, and terrain. More structured patterns, like bricks or floor tiles, can lose their regular appearance once the randomization is applied.
See more from the original creator, the links will be right below.
- Hoj Dee’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HojDee
- Hoj Dee’s breakdown: https://hojdee.com/removing-texture-repetition-cell-bombing-in-unreal-engine/
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