Tips for sculpting tile-like terrain

Question

I'm looking to make a terrain system sort of like in the fourth and fifth generation Pokémon games. It's just all gridded basically, and reuses the same pieces all over.

An example of the type of terrain I'm trying to create:

I just started using sculpt mode. The problem I ran into was that I can't get the edges of the pieces to line up without some ugly gap (I'm mainly talking about the mountain-side pieces). Does anyone know how to make it so this kind of thing can work, so the edges will line up without odd gaps?

Answer 1

As an expansion of gandalf3's answer, I'll give a quick workflow on how to make tiling easier...

1. Start with a mirror modifier on your object along both the X and Y axes.

   

2. Model the edges of the mesh. Since you have the mirror modifier, it will tile evenly along both the X and Y objects.

   

3. Apply the mirror modifier.

4. Hide the edges of the mesh (Select the edges you want to hide, then press H. To hide in sculpt mode press H (this will bring up box select) and select the very edges of the mesh), and model (or sculpt) the middle part of the rock.
   Since you hid the outer edges, they will not be effected when modeling the rest of the rock.

5. Unhide the hidden edges (Alt+H)

   

6. Tile using the Array modifier.

Answer 2

You could use an Array modifier

Note that if you use dynamic topology sculpting you will have to sculpt one piece first, then use the array modifier.

Answer 3

I made a formal blog post for this purpose using a plane and UV texturing to paint seamless textures: http://jikz.net/archives/651

This may help you get rid of your hard edges.

Cheers!

To sum it up with one picture: Setup a 3x3 plane using loop cuts (then subdivide further or use a multires modifier). As shown in the image, sculpt in the middle square.