ZBrushCentral

Tileable Terrain Sculpting in ZBrush - Need Help

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

So I shall set the scene!

I am trying to make 8" x 8" modules of terrain that are seamless and tileable from one to the other with a variety of terrain features. For example :

A Straight River, A Right Angle River, A River Crossing, A Flat Grass Land.

Then they can be used in different orientations and positions to create seamless and virtually unlimited variations of landmasses!

I have been trying the Curve Brush function in Zbrush to get brushes to work with creating a warping / overlap of one edge of the mesh to the other but I started trying to use the Insert Mesh feature so instead of sculpting every single rock and detail I can make some of my own Insert Meshes and use those instead, however they don’t work with the Wrap / Curve Brush modifier so I have no idea how I am going to actually do this?!

I need to be able to sculpt seamless terrain pieces that are perfectly square and seamless / tileable from one to the next or even the same tile multiple times at different orientations. I am not too fussed about them being 100% tileable but so long as they look reasonably good.

I am hoping to 3D print them so UV mapping and texturing is not an issue and neither is poly count, appart from when my PC starts to scream at me when I am doing too much haha!

I would appreciate any feedback or help with my issue / struggle!

#2

Here is an image showing the idea I am going for. It is crude and 2D but you should get the idea.

http://i.imgur.com/NGRCrqg.jpg

Each of those is a tile, each tile has to fit fairly seamlessly next to another tile and at different orientations. Obviously river tiles will have 2 edges they can fit next to other normal tiles while the other 2 edges are the river directions will only fit to other tiles with river connections. Etc etc

I am really struggling. I found a way of getting grass plains to flow into a tile with a hill and a tile with a pond but I can’t for the life of me get a straight river tile AND a bent river tile that fit together and still fit next to other grass tiles.