Clone Stamp

The Clone Stamp node enables users to do some manual material cleanup, by copying parts of a material to other parts of the same material.

Description

The Clone Stamp node was added to ArtEngine to enable manual fine-tuning of images. Sometimes a slight modification of the results of the Mutation or Seam Removal nodes are required, for instance; moving a certain part of a texture element slightly, or extending a section of smooth texture slightly over a rough patch. The Clone Stamp node allows users to make that last tweak to get exactly what they want.

Materials are then sent into the node, and a Clone Stamp brush tool is used on the desired map (usually the albedo or diffuse map is used, but any map can be selected) to clone from a source point on the image to another point, using strokes which can be customized using the brush tool settings.

You can check out our video tutorial here.

Usage

The node is created and dropped into the node graph. Connect an input material and imbue the node in the 2D Viewer by double-clicking the node.

You first need to select the clone stamping source. First select your source map, if it is not the default. Then select the source point by holding ALT and left-clicking on the texture at the point you wish to clone.
A preview of the clone stamp brush is rendered in your brush cursor, and can be seen in context as you move the cursor across the image. The brush size and opacity can be modified in the brush properties panel. You can zoom in and make sure that your stroke will give the desired result, before left-clicking / dragging to make your stroke.
More strokes can be added as desired. You can also undo and redo strokes until you are satisfied with your clone stamping session.
The node can be executed to apply the clone stamping strokes to all other maps in the material, producing an output on the node’s output pin, which can be connected to the next node in your graph.

Node Reference

Node category	Paint
Node execution style	Manual

Ports

Input Name	Input Type	Description
Input	Material	Clone stamping is done by using a brush to take a copy of part of the input image and stamping it down elsewhere on the image. Any of the input maps can be selected to be used in the clone stamping session.

Output Type	Description
Material	The material which has had your clone stamping strokes applied across all maps.

Properties

Property/Setting	Description
Brush Properties
Size	The size of the circular brush used to make clone stamp strokes.
Hardness	This setting enables you to modify the edge of the brush. A faded edge is visible around the brush and the extent of this fade can be modified with this setting.
Opacity	The overall alpha value used to blend the applied strokes can be modified with this.
Aligned	This setting allows you to switch between aligned mode and unaligned mode. With this set to true, the clone source location will track your mouse cursor across the source image even when you’re not dragging. This allows a source location to be cloned across a number of strokes.
Wrap Edges	Whether to clone from the opposite side of the source texture, when the cursor runs off the edge of the image.
Node Properties
Reset Strokes	In the node properties panel there is a button to reset strokes. The clone stamping stroke history is stored for each node, and can be reset so that the node execution will simply pass through input. Note that the node output itself will not be reset until a new execution of the node is done after a stroke reset.