---
name: layer-textures
description: "Use when generating a texture with Layer that must repeat without a visible seam: ground, terrain, walls, fabric, foliage, stone, wood, pattern fills, or a tiling material for a game engine. Also when a generated texture shows seams at its edges, an obvious repeating motif across a surface, or baked-in lighting that fights the engine. Keywords: tileable, seamless, tiling, texture, material, pattern, trim sheet, terrain, repeat."
license: MIT
---

# Layer Textures

## Overview

A texture is not an image of a surface. It is an image whose left edge continues into its right edge
and whose top continues into its bottom, so that a plane tiled with it shows no seam. A model will
not do this unless the run asks for it.

The mandatory step is `tileability: true` on the run itself. Asking for a seamless texture in the
prompt does not make the edges meet; the flag does. It works on any image generation or editing
model, in one of two ways:

- **Native.** A model whose capabilities report `native_tileability` generates the wrap itself. Find
  one with `list_base_models` and `filter.capabilities: {tileability: true}` (an object of booleans,
  not a list of names). Such a model then takes no LoRA style, so a trained reference set is not
  applied to it.
- **Joined afterwards.** Any other model has its edges joined after generation, as `tile_texture`
  decides: `ORGANIC` (grass, sand, moss, water, rubble) and `PIXEL` (pixel art, also snapped to its
  own grid and palette) are cut together at no cost. `STRUCTURED` (bricks, planks, panels), or
  leaving it unset, repaints the edges in a separately billed run, so pass the same `tile_texture`
  to `estimate_forge_price`.

Upscales, layered outputs and vector outputs are never joined, so set `tileability` on the
generation, not on a later pass. Everything else on this page is secondary to getting the flag right.

Generation mechanics are in the `layer` skill. If a sibling skill named here is missing from your
available skills, ask the user to install it (`npx skills add layerai/skills --skill <name>`);
unattended, proceed from tool schemas and flag the gap.

## State the scale

Scale is what separates a usable texture from an unusable one, and it is the most commonly omitted
field. Say how much real-world surface the tile covers: "a 2-metre square of cobblestone, roughly
twenty stones across" is a texture. "Cobblestone" could be one boulder or a city square, and the
model will pick.

Anchor it to the feature rather than the tile: "individual planks about 15cm wide", "grass blades
roughly 5cm", "brick courses at standard size". The engine will scale the material, but only if the
density inside the tile is right to begin with.

## Flat light, no hero features

Two prompt clauses do most of the remaining work:

- **Even, diffuse, flat lighting, no directional shadows.** Baked-in shadow is the second-biggest
  defect after seams. A texture lit from the upper left looks wrong everywhere the engine's light is
  not upper left, and it cannot be removed later.
- **Uniform distribution, no focal point, no single distinguishing feature.** Generative models like
  to compose, so they will place one dramatic cracked stone in the middle. Tiled across a floor, that
  crack becomes a grid of identical cracks and is the thing every player notices.

Ask for consistent variation instead: "evenly distributed wear and colour variation across the whole
tile, no single dominant feature."

## Judging the result

Do not judge a texture by looking at the tile. Judge it tiled. Check the four edges continue into
each other, then check a 3x3 repeat for a motif that has become a pattern. A tile that looks
excellent alone and shows an obvious rhythm at 3x3 is a failed tile.

If the seam is right but a feature repeats too visibly, the fix is usually a rerun with stronger
uniformity language rather than an edit, since removing the feature locally reintroduces a seam.

## Material maps

A texture for a lit engine scene usually needs more than colour. Where a model declares PBR or
material outputs, take them in the same run rather than deriving normals from the colour map
afterwards, which produces flat-looking surfaces. `get_base_model` is the authority on what a given
model returns.

Pixel-art tiles carry these rules plus their own: see `layer-pixel-art`. Isometric and hex game tiles
that snap to a grid are a different job (`tile_grid`), covered in `layer-tilesets`. To hand finished
textures to an engine as a tileset, `export_tileset` accepts tileable textures of one size.

## Worked example

"A seamless mossy stone floor for our dungeon."

1. `list_base_models` with `filter.use_case: "text_to_image"` and
   `filter.capabilities: {tileability: true, square: true}`. Take the first result: it wraps
   natively, so no join is needed.
2. `get_base_model`, for the material outputs it offers.
3. Prompt: "Seamless tileable texture of worn dungeon flagstones with moss in the joints, covering
   roughly 2 metres square with about eight stones across. Even diffuse flat lighting, no directional
   shadows, no cast shadows. Uniform distribution of wear and moss across the whole tile, no focal
   point, no single dominant crack or feature. Top-down orthographic view."
4. Estimate and execute with `tileability: true` and `batch_size: 4` so there are options. Had the
   filter returned nothing, the same flag on any image model with `tile_texture: "ORGANIC"` (moss
   and stone joints read as organic) would join the edges at no extra cost.
5. Judge each candidate at a 3x3 repeat before choosing.

## Common mistakes

- Asking for "seamless" in the prompt without setting `tileability: true` on the run.
- Leaving `tile_texture` unset on a non-native model for grass or sand, which pays for a repaint an
  `ORGANIC` join does for free.
- Setting `tileability` on an upscale or vectorise pass, which is never joined.
- Omitting scale, so the tile is one enormous stone or a thousand tiny ones.
- Accepting directional lighting baked into the tile.
- A dramatic hero feature that becomes a visible grid when repeated.
- Judging the tile on its own rather than tiled at 3x3.
- Deriving normal maps from the colour map when the model could return them directly.
- Requesting a perspective view of a surface instead of a top-down orthographic one.