An easier way to make repeating patterns in AD

[LionelD]

This technique relies on the power of Symbols to produce a good result with less effort than many other techniques I’ve encountered.

First, I need to establish some terminology.  Patterns generally have decorative elements displayed against a background.  Decorative elements are commonly called “Motifs”.  I refer to the background as “Fill”, but that’s probably not the term that professional surface pattern designers use.

A motif can be as simple as a single straight line, and a Fill can be as simple as a block of solid color.

Patterns are first and foremost about geometry, but that will be a very small part of this article.  To keep things simple, I am going to rely on a simple square in a Brick layout.

This technique requires a high degree of precision, but there’s no need to calculate where to place any element in your pattern.

1. You need two art boards:  a “small” art board where you will do most of the work of assembling your pattern, and a “large” art board where you see your assembled tiled pattern.  The large art board is where you extract the repeating tile which gets constructed indirectly.  I customarily use art boards dimensioned 9,000px X 9,000px; you can use any units you’re comfortable with - at least until you get to the export persona which has some complications. I’m going to stick to pixels because that simplifies things a bit.
2. Make a new document with two art boards, each 9,000px X 9,000px. Left art board is “Design”, right art board is “Tiled Pattern”
3. On Design art board:  We are going to construct a symbol for our motifs.  Make a square 4,000px X 4,000px, 1pt stroke (black), no fill, name the layer “Motif”; for now, we want this layer visible.  With Motif selected (in Layers), turn it into a symbol using the Symbols panel.  For convenience, position your Motif symbol in the centre of the Design art board (use Transform for this).
4. On Tiled Pattern art board:  Add one instance of Motif symbol to Tiled Pattern, transform it so it’s top left corner is in the top left corner of the art board.  At this stage it should still be 4,000px X 4,000px; change it to 3,000px X 3,000px using Transform, without changing it’s position on the art board.

• Duplicate Motif twice, arrange the 3 instances in a row so the motifs align corner to corner, giving you a row of 3 Motifs along the top edge of the art board. Duplicate that row twice, and arrange those copies below the first, edge to edge.  You should now have 9 Motifs arranged in 3 rows, 3 columns.
• These two steps require high precision to ensure that each row is straight, each column is straight, and each Motif square meets its neighbours exactly at their corners. Any misalignment will plague you relentlessly. And we’re done with almost all the calculations.

5. Back on Design art board, in the Layers panel, open your Motif symbol so you can see its two layers.  ALL your design elements (motifs) must be placed between these two layers; they can (and should) project beyond the edges of the square as required to fulfill your artistic vision.

• Start by adding motifs one at a time (grab one from the Zoo), and watch your patten assemble itself on the other art board.  Reposition elements as required, and watch the other art board update accordingly.
• To better understand the power of symbols used this way, you should add one motif (small square, circle or similar), and slowly move it into a corner of your Motif symbol, and you’ll see it appear on the opposing edges, all with no calculations to get it there.
• Any motif that projects beyond the square that is the foundation of the Motif symbol automatically projects into the neighbor/s exactly as required.  If you have been doing this by manually creating and positioning the counterpart motif where it should project into the opposite side of the foundation square, this technique obviates the need to do so.  Especially in the corners, where it can be very painful.
• If you place your motifs inside the foundation square, that square will truncate them, and you’ll be back to creating and positioning counterparts manually.  But you should try it.

6. When your pattern is complete, it’s time to make that repeating tile.  We are going to extract it from the Tiled Pattern art board using the Export Persona.

• Tap the Tiled Pattern art board so it’s active, switch to the Export Persona, and use the Slice tool to create a slice that aligns exactly with the middle Motif symbol on that art board - same size (3,000px X 3,000px), centered at 4,500px and 4,500px.
• Give this slice an appropriate name, and export it - just remember to make the foundation square in Motif invisible - otherwise it is going to show up on your tile, and you probably don’t want that.
• Test your tile in a new document by use the gradient tool to make a fill with your tile as a bitmap image.

7. You can edit your pattern iteratively by adding, repositioning and/or resizing motif elements as required, just be sure to re-export your tile after pattern changes.  Make sure your Motif symbols do NOT MOVE, accidentally or on purpose.

Some Notes

• The slice for the repeating tile will be too small if you have motifs that are much larger than the slice.  Resize the slice by doubling its dimensions.
• The Design art board does not provide a background for your motifs.  A simple way to create one is to add a square as the last layer on the Tiled Pattern art board, the same size as that art board, and add a fill to your taste.  This fill is an integral part of your pattern, so choose appropriately.  The attached file has a background as described.
• The Export Persona has a personality all it’s own, and it can be quite cranky.  First of all, there’s no easy way to choose a unit of measure for your slice other than pixels.  You can select a different unit when you enter a dimension, but Export converts it to pixels expertly in the blink of an eye.

More about Symbols

• Different instances of same symbol can have their own sizes, orientations and positions, must contain same set of layers.

• Symbols do not have their own shape or size; they derive those properties as the sum of what they contain.  Even though I based my symbols on a square, the symbol’s content can (and does) project beyond the borders of the square.  And that’s exactly what you want because that’s what obviates all need to calculate positions for motifs that project beyond the nominal boundaries of the tile you are trying to create.  For my sanity, I usually have a dummy layer that signals the bottom of the layer stack in the symbol.  For patterns, using a shape like a square enables geometrically correct placement of the symbols on Tiled Pattern; you can make this shape visible or not as appropriate while you edit your pattern.  Do not place your motifs inside the base shape of the symbol; if you do that, your motif will be truncated at the boundary, and you will have to add another copy of the motif and put it in the correct position, and you’ll have all your old alignment problems back.

 

Repeating Patterns V2.afdesign

Edited April 5, 2023 by LionelD
Corrected positions of slices in Export

[v_kyr]

Looks more like a Tutorial, or is it first of all meant as a Resource?

[LionelD]

It could be in the wrong place.  If so, are you able to move it to the correct place, please?

Lionel

[v_kyr]

@Dan C

A forum moderator will do so, as a user I can't do so (no permissions)!

[RuthH]

I followed your directions but it didn't work, unfortunately. I tried copy and paste, and I tried duplicate, still didn't work. The other way isn't perfect, but it works well enough for what I'm doing.

[tantababy]

I watched and researched numerous ways of pattern designs to try and make seamless patterns effortless and after watching some Skillshare classes where they used Illustrator to make patterns I noticed that when they were using the Pattern tool they had elements that were off the canvas it clicked that that was what we needed to do in Affinity.

The key is using a canvas of the size you want your pattern to be but DO NOT use an artboard. Doing this means you can use the clip to canvas function which allows you to see your assets that aren't on the canvas, just like in Illustrator. It is so simple and was there in plain sight the whole time.

I create a symbol just as you would when using the artboard and Live preview (or pattern tile as above) method but instead of adding the extra symbols to the live preview (on another artboard - the old way) I duplicate them around the edges of the canvas (this can be done to create full or half drop patterns in the same way as the old live preview way). I then just add assets or draw as you would to the original symbol, the beauty is they will appear in every symbol and won't be cut off like they are when clipped to artboards. Using the preview button at the top right to 'clip to canvas' shows you only the main pattern tile, any asset that goes over one symbol in to the next will be shown within the tile, click the preview button again and you will see all your symbols and how your pattern will look. Export the canvas as png/jpeg as you would normally for use in POD etc.

I have created myself templates for full drops, half drops, scallops, ogee, brick, diamond patterns (both reflected and unreflected) in this manner. Best of all I never need to duplicate and transform assets.

[LionelD]

Thanks for your response.  That is an interesting variation on the approach I described.  And I agree, the best thing is that you never need to duplicate a motif on the opposite side of the tile, or calculate the coordinates.  It’s also much faster.

Regards and Good Luck to you.

[RuthH]

On 5/31/2023 at 4:17 PM, tantababy said:

I watched and researched numerous ways of pattern designs to try and make seamless patterns effortless and after watching some Skillshare classes where they used Illustrator to make patterns I noticed that when they were using the Pattern tool they had elements that were off the canvas it clicked that that was what we needed to do in Affinity.

The key is using a canvas of the size you want your pattern to be but DO NOT use an artboard. Doing this means you can use the clip to canvas function which allows you to see your assets that aren't on the canvas, just like in Illustrator. It is so simple and was there in plain sight the whole time.

I create a symbol just as you would when using the artboard and Live preview (or pattern tile as above) method but instead of adding the extra symbols to the live preview (on another artboard - the old way) I duplicate them around the edges of the canvas (this can be done to create full or half drop patterns in the same way as the old live preview way). I then just add assets or draw as you would to the original symbol, the beauty is they will appear in every symbol and won't be cut off like they are when clipped to artboards. Using the preview button at the top right to 'clip to canvas' shows you only the main pattern tile, any asset that goes over one symbol in to the next will be shown within the tile, click the preview button again and you will see all your symbols and how your pattern will look. Export the canvas as png/jpeg as you would normally for use in POD etc.

I have created myself templates for full drops, half drops, scallops, ogee, brick, diamond patterns (both reflected and unreflected) in this manner. Best of all I never need to duplicate and transform assets.

 

I'm very interested in this method, however your video doesn't play. 

[walt.farrell]

11 hours ago, RuthH said:

I'm very interested in this method, however your video doesn't play. 

What do you see, or what message do you get? And what OS do you use?

I can play it on my iPad, but I haven't checked Windows.

[LionelD]

Hi, I also had no difficulty playing that video - iPad and MBP.

Regards

[TrentL]

On 4/6/2023 at 11:45 AM, RuthH said:

I followed your directions but it didn't work, unfortunately. I tried copy and paste, and I tried duplicate, still didn't work. The other way isn't perfect, but it works well enough for what I'm doing.

I posted another way to make seamless patterns on this forum. I'm not sure what your exact use case is, but you may find it helpful:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/187251-easy-method-to-make-seamless-patterns-no-math-any-canvas-size/

 

 

[tantababy]

9 hours ago, TrentL said:

I posted another way to make seamless patterns on this forum. I'm not sure what your exact use case is, but you may find it helpful:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/187251-easy-method-to-make-seamless-patterns-no-math-any-canvas-size/

 

 

Hi Trent,

Nice video and yes that is a quick and easy way to make a seamless pattern.  Problem I can see is that that method will only work for full drop patterns, if you want to do something else like diamond, scallops, ogee, half drop or brick it won't work.  Using symbols as I described above also allows you to rotate, resize or flip your elements as the action will be done exactly the same way in the other symbols and there is no need to duplicate any elements. I tend to draw my own elements/assets and using the symbols method means it happens live around the whole design so I can alter, change and move anything as I go. 

I guess it all depends on what your end goal is as to which method you prefer. 

[RuthH]

17 minutes ago, tantababy said:

Hi Trent,

Nice video and yes that is a quick and easy way to make a seamless pattern.  Problem I can see is that that method will only work for full drop patterns, if you want to do something else like diamond, scallops, ogee, half drop or brick it won't work.  Using symbols as I described above also allows you to rotate, resize or flip your elements as the action will be done exactly the same way in the other symbols and there is no need to duplicate any elements. I tend to draw my own elements/assets and using the symbols method means it happens live around the whole design so I can alter, change and move anything as I go. 

I guess it all depends on what your end goal is as to which method you prefer. 

I've had a play with your symbols method and it is better in many ways, thank you! It still has quirks, but the live preview is brilliant. Thank you for sharing!

[tantababy]

8 minutes ago, RuthH said:

I've had a play with your symbols method and it is better in many ways, thank you! It still has quirks, but the live preview is brilliant. Thank you for sharing!

Excellent, pleased to have shared.  I have found pattern design so much more fun this way. Still a bit of a pain to set up but once I had I made them as templates so hopefully only need to do that once and then just get on and draw.

 

[TrentL]

1 hour ago, tantababy said:

Hi Trent,

Nice video and yes that is a quick and easy way to make a seamless pattern.  Problem I can see is that that method will only work for full drop patterns, if you want to do something else like diamond, scallops, ogee, half drop or brick it won't work.  Using symbols as I described above also allows you to rotate, resize or flip your elements as the action will be done exactly the same way in the other symbols and there is no need to duplicate any elements. I tend to draw my own elements/assets and using the symbols method means it happens live around the whole design so I can alter, change and move anything as I go. 

I guess it all depends on what your end goal is as to which method you prefer. 

Good point. I tend to make my seamless patterns look more organic and try to "hide the repeat", but maybe it isn't appropriate for more geometric patterns like diamonds, half drop, and all that. Actually I was thinking of making a video on the different types of patterns, so that is something that may be coming up soon

[LionelD]

1 hour ago, tantababy said:

Hi Trent,

Nice video and yes that is a quick and easy way to make a seamless pattern.  Problem I can see is that that method will only work for full drop patterns, if you want to do something else like diamond, scallops, ogee, half drop or brick it won't work.  Using symbols as I described above also allows you to rotate, resize or flip your elements as the action will be done exactly the same way in the other symbols and there is no need to duplicate any elements. I tend to draw my own elements/assets and using the symbols method means it happens live around the whole design so I can alter, change and move anything as I go. 

I guess it all depends on what your end goal is as to which method you prefer. 

I agree with this assessment 100%.  The moment you try to use something other than a rectangle or square as the base geometry for your pattern, life gets complicated.

@TrentL The technique you used for positioning motifs that span an edge is interesting.

Regards

[HJayP]

I have had a go at this method for producing repeat patterns. It works really well but how do you export them as a pattern tile? I am only getting a blurry tile when I try to export. I have been using a 4000 x 4000 px tile at 300 dpi, I’ve tried jpeg, png, tiff, svg. The result every time is a pixelated blury tile. I’m using Affinity Designer 2 on an iPad. The tile looks perfect on the screen but the export is unusable. I had wanted to get some fabric printed. What am I doing wrong? 

star circle full drop pattern temp.afdesign

Edited August 22, 2023 by HJayP

[HJayP]

These were the export settings used. I couldn’t attach them in the previous post.

 

 

[TrentL]

4 hours ago, HJayP said:

I have had a go at this method for producing repeat patterns. It works really well but how do you export them as a pattern tile? I am only getting a blurry tile when I try to export. I have been using a 4000 x 4000 px tile at 300 dpi, I’ve tried jpeg, png, tiff, svg. The result every time is a pixelated blury tile. I’m using Affinity Designer 2 on an iPad. The tile looks perfect on the screen but the export is unusable. I had wanted to get some fabric printed. What am I doing wrong? 

star circle full drop pattern temp.afdesign

Hi @HJayP

I downloaded your file, exported it with your settings, and it looks good to me. I am using Affinity Designer on Windows, but I don't think that should matter too much. Can you attach an image of the blurry output? What program are you looking at the output file in? Sometimes file previews look blurry things like File Explorer. 

 

[HJayP]

Thank you! I was just using Affinity Designer’s preview as I thought that would be exactly what any export would look like. I have now tested it out as a bitmap fill and your right it’s not that bad. I’m now confused as to what the export preview function is for if it doesn’t show an accurate preview… 

Thanks again

 

[Sissely]

On 4/5/2023 at 5:30 PM, LionelD said:

This technique relies on the power of Symbols to produce a good result with less effort than many other techniques I’ve encountered.

First, I need to establish some terminology.  Patterns generally have decorative elements displayed against a background.  Decorative elements are commonly called “Motifs”.  I refer to the background as “Fill”, but that’s probably not the term that professional surface pattern designers use.

A motif can be as simple as a single straight line, and a Fill can be as simple as a block of solid color.

Patterns are first and foremost about geometry, but that will be a very small part of this article.  To keep things simple, I am going to rely on a simple square in a Brick layout.

This technique requires a high degree of precision, but there’s no need to calculate where to place any element in your pattern.

1. You need two art boards:  a “small” art board where you will do most of the work of assembling your pattern, and a “large” art board where you see your assembled tiled pattern.  The large art board is where you extract the repeating tile which gets constructed indirectly.  I customarily use art boards dimensioned 9,000px X 9,000px; you can use any units you’re comfortable with - at least until you get to the export persona which has some complications. I’m going to stick to pixels because that simplifies things a bit.
2. Make a new document with two art boards, each 9,000px X 9,000px. Left art board is “Design”, right art board is “Tiled Pattern”
3. On Design art board:  We are going to construct a symbol for our motifs.  Make a square 4,000px X 4,000px, 1pt stroke (black), no fill, name the layer “Motif”; for now, we want this layer visible.  With Motif selected (in Layers), turn it into a symbol using the Symbols panel.  For convenience, position your Motif symbol in the centre of the Design art board (use Transform for this).
4. On Tiled Pattern art board:  Add one instance of Motif symbol to Tiled Pattern, transform it so it’s top left corner is in the top left corner of the art board.  At this stage it should still be 4,000px X 4,000px; change it to 3,000px X 3,000px using Transform, without changing it’s position on the art board.

• Duplicate Motif twice, arrange the 3 instances in a row so the motifs align corner to corner, giving you a row of 3 Motifs along the top edge of the art board. Duplicate that row twice, and arrange those copies below the first, edge to edge.  You should now have 9 Motifs arranged in 3 rows, 3 columns.
• These two steps require high precision to ensure that each row is straight, each column is straight, and each Motif square meets its neighbours exactly at their corners. Any misalignment will plague you relentlessly. And we’re done with almost all the calculations.

5. Back on Design art board, in the Layers panel, open your Motif symbol so you can see its two layers.  ALL your design elements (motifs) must be placed between these two layers; they can (and should) project beyond the edges of the square as required to fulfill your artistic vision.

• Start by adding motifs one at a time (grab one from the Zoo), and watch your patten assemble itself on the other art board.  Reposition elements as required, and watch the other art board update accordingly.
• To better understand the power of symbols used this way, you should add one motif (small square, circle or similar), and slowly move it into a corner of your Motif symbol, and you’ll see it appear on the opposing edges, all with no calculations to get it there.
• Any motif that projects beyond the square that is the foundation of the Motif symbol automatically projects into the neighbor/s exactly as required.  If you have been doing this by manually creating and positioning the counterpart motif where it should project into the opposite side of the foundation square, this technique obviates the need to do so.  Especially in the corners, where it can be very painful.
• If you place your motifs inside the foundation square, that square will truncate them, and you’ll be back to creating and positioning counterparts manually.  But you should try it.

6. When your pattern is complete, it’s time to make that repeating tile.  We are going to extract it from the Tiled Pattern art board using the Export Persona.

• Tap the Tiled Pattern art board so it’s active, switch to the Export Persona, and use the Slice tool to create a slice that aligns exactly with the middle Motif symbol on that art board - same size (3,000px X 3,000px), centered at 4,500px and 4,500px.
• Give this slice an appropriate name, and export it - just remember to make the foundation square in Motif invisible - otherwise it is going to show up on your tile, and you probably don’t want that.
• Test your tile in a new document by use the gradient tool to make a fill with your tile as a bitmap image.

7. You can edit your pattern iteratively by adding, repositioning and/or resizing motif elements as required, just be sure to re-export your tile after pattern changes.  Make sure your Motif symbols do NOT MOVE, accidentally or on purpose.

Some Notes

• The slice for the repeating tile will be too small if you have motifs that are much larger than the slice.  Resize the slice by doubling its dimensions.
• The Design art board does not provide a background for your motifs.  A simple way to create one is to add a square as the last layer on the Tiled Pattern art board, the same size as that art board, and add a fill to your taste.  This fill is an integral part of your pattern, so choose appropriately.  The attached file has a background as described.
• The Export Persona has a personality all it’s own, and it can be quite cranky.  First of all, there’s no easy way to choose a unit of measure for your slice other than pixels.  You can select a different unit when you enter a dimension, but Export converts it to pixels expertly in the blink of an eye.

More about Symbols

• Different instances of same symbol can have their own sizes, orientations and positions, must contain same set of layers.

• Symbols do not have their own shape or size; they derive those properties as the sum of what they contain.  Even though I based my symbols on a square, the symbol’s content can (and does) project beyond the borders of the square.  And that’s exactly what you want because that’s what obviates all need to calculate positions for motifs that project beyond the nominal boundaries of the tile you are trying to create.  For my sanity, I usually have a dummy layer that signals the bottom of the layer stack in the symbol.  For patterns, using a shape like a square enables geometrically correct placement of the symbols on Tiled Pattern; you can make this shape visible or not as appropriate while you edit your pattern.  Do not place your motifs inside the base shape of the symbol; if you do that, your motif will be truncated at the boundary, and you will have to add another copy of the motif and put it in the correct position, and you’ll have all your old alignment problems back.

 

Repeating Patterns V2.afdesign 51.23 MB · 114 downloads

Fantastic new approach! Thank you so much for sharing!