May 2012 Tutorial - Create Seamless Patterns in Xara Designer Pro X

The May video tutorial on XaraXone.com has been posted. Go Watch it then come back and share your patterns!

You might notice a pattern going on here: all is well, because Gary Bouton shows you how to create seamless tiling patterns with Xara Designer Pro X this month. Imagine being able to build an intricate image tile that fills any shape for any purpose. Stop imagining now! Download the tutorial Zip archive and tuck into this month’s tutorial video.

I watched that tutorial and it's awesome. Some mighty good tricks and tips there. Thank you Gare

Thanks, Larry.

Let me emphasize here that the Infobar cannot display a fractional amount for a potential tile, or Xara will anti-alias the difference in the fraction to the nearest whole number, blending the edge against the white of the document...and the result will be a visible seam when you go to tile the bitmap copy.

So: 450.3 pix by 226.1 pixels...not good.

but: 450 pixels by 226 pixels will get you there.

A seamless tile does'nt have to be square, but if you make a rectangle, each time you need to nudge horizontally or vertically, you need to set up a new nudge value that precisely matches the dimension of the rectangle...so square patterns are better (or at least easier).

And the "Magic Number" I used, 512, is only magic if you go back to when you could count memory or RAM. 256, 512, 768, 1024, and so on are integers that programmers and hard drive manufacturers and such use for sectors and blocks and you can probably dismiss this little fact now. You can make an 800 by 800 pixel pattern if you like and it will work if you follow this month's tutorial steps.

My Best, and let's see some pattern examples here,

Gary

Hey Gary & Barbara--thanks for the tut.

Tiles are fun to make. Here's mine. I'm feeling a bit nostalgic for the '60s of late.

Take care, Mike

That is wonderful, Mike, I mean it!

You created this by following the tutorial?

Ten points for you, Sir!

It reminds me one one I gave away in the Free Stuff section in January:

Attachment 89591

Groovy...

:)

Gary

The answer to the question is...yes and no. I mean, I did watch and follow the tut, but other than not typically using the 512px size like I did for the example, it is the same process I have used before.

The one main change I did to my previous process is I usually don't change the nudge to equal the background square. I did this time and, well, it *was* a bit easier <g>.

I'll be adding some more '60s tiles. Makes me feel like I have accomplished something while I await yet more catalog changes to arrive!

Take care, Mike

It's all good. If you create more than 10 you're happy with, I'd gladly add it to the Xara Xone archive, feature it, and let everyone share in the fruits of your labors, unless they're patterns of vegetables...

-g-

Oh, I'll probably get to ten, easy. Y'all can be the judge of ten worthwhile ones for inclusion.

Here's #2. Now, I gotta get some work finished.

Take care, Mike

duck soup

Well, I followed the tutorial, but things didn't turn out as I expected. I tried to be clever and make a tomato and cheese topping for the pepperoni and green chilli to sit on, but the plasma fill of the tomato/cheese would not tile - why I expected it to, I don't know. The blurry effect of the plasma fill made the pepperoni/chilli seem to float above the pizza base, so all-in-all not one of my better efforts.
Bob.