Brick Options

[davidstvz]

It seems like options for exterior brick are very limited. The ones that come in the core catalog remind me of bricks used in building houses 30 or 40 years ago.  If there is any kind of accent bricks, the texture ends up looking very repetitive.  A couple of the "used" brick options look alright and seem more like bricks you typically see on builds done in the last 20 years, but there's a serious lack of options for modern bricks.

 

I can't say that I've found any in the manufacturer's catalogs that look very good either.  Many of the materials in those catalogs don't seem optimized to fit into the semi-realistic graphic style of Home Designer textures.

 

I made my own larger brick texture (larger so that it could be less repetitive) with some success and learned that there is an underlying "normal map" which limits you.  You need to get rid of the normal map association if you make anything larger than 1024x1024.

 

I would like to buy a library of better looking and more varied bricks, but I don't see one for sale.

 

 

[DavidJPotter]

All of these libraries contain stone and brick selections and they are all FREE: Click here

 

DJP

[davidstvz]

Yes, I'd looked through these.  I just took another close look. If I were building a castle, I'd be set!  There are plenty of good stones to work with. 

 

For brick, it looks like Mutual Materials is the only one with a real selection of bricks.  Still, many of these are unusable, particularly any of the ones with accents of any kinds.  They look cartoonish and extremely repetitive. The flat colors are pretty good if you're building a house with flat colored bricks, or minimal variation in color.

 

Coronado Stone (Thin Brick), Cultured Stone (Cultured Brick Veneer) and Eldorado Stone (Brick) have a few bricks that might be useful. 

 

I just can't seem to find something that works well though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DavidJPotter]

You can also go to the Acme Brick site where they have an app to create Brick textures from their catalog in various patterns, the Boral Brick and stone company also has such an app online. Between the two there are hundreds and hundreds of potential choices to create, download, and install in HD software as "custom Materials'.

 

DJP

[davidstvz]

Ah, now that is a very useful thing to know!  I was thinking of writing my own brick texture creating app, but no need to reinvent the wheel.