Broken Terracotta Tiles by Maxime Guyard-Morin

Ever wondered if you can get that hand-sculpted ZBrush feel without leaving Substance Designer? Maxime Guyard-Morin shows you exactly how. This tutorial walks you through building a full set of broken terracotta tiles from scratch—no external sculpting software needed. You’ll go from a blank graph to a gritty, realistic material with cracks, tilting, and dust.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Build intricate tile patterns procedurally
• Sculpt realistic tile edges and damage inside Substance Designer
• Add surface details, concrete gaps, and dust for realism
• Apply base color and roughness using expert techniques

✅ Requirements

• Skills: Basic knowledge of Substance Designer interface and node workflow
• Tools: Substance Designer 2021 or newer
• Hardware: Standard workstation capable of running Substance Designer

📝 Description

This isn’t your typical tile tutorial. Maxime breaks down his personal workflow for faking a ZBrush-sculpted look using only Substance Designer nodes. You’ll learn how to build custom patterns, sculpt tile edges with height blends, and introduce realistic damage like cracks and tilting—all procedurally.

The course is structured like a real production pass. You start with the base pattern, then layer on edge sculpts, detail maps, and breakage. Maxime shows you how to fill the gaps with concrete and apply base color and roughness that sells the material. The final touch? A dust layer that ties everything together.

What makes this stand out is the focus on non-destructive, fully procedural techniques. You can tweak any parameter and get a completely different tile layout or damage pattern. It’s perfect for building a library of reusable materials.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• Material artists who want to push Substance Designer beyond standard tiling textures
• Environment artists looking for procedural ways to create realistic architectural damage
• Intermediate users ready to level up their node-based sculpting skills

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

Maxime Guyard-Morin is a material artist from France currently working at Mighty Canvas. He specializes in material creation, environment art, and 3D modeling. His work focuses on procedural workflows that bridge the gap between hand-sculpted detail and efficient game-ready assets.

🏁 Final Result

• A fully procedural broken terracotta tile material with sculpted edges, cracks, concrete gaps, and dust
• A reusable Substance Designer graph you can adapt for other tile or stone materials