Primitive Repetition | Substance 3D Modeler

Repetition

Repetition can be used with primitives, just like with clay. To use mirror, radial, or kaleidoscope repetition:

1. Select a primitive or group of primitives.
2. Open the Actions menu and navigate to the Symmetry and Repetition tab.
3. Select the desired type of repetition, and use the controls to modify the number of repeats, and the axis of symmetry.

While repetition is available for both clay and primitives, primitives and clay can behave a little differently when repetition is applied.

When a primitive has repetition turned on, other primitives that overlap any of the primitive's repetitions will only interact with the repetition that they overlap with. For example, if you create a radial repetition of a cylinder primitive, and create a sphere primitive in carve mode, the sphere will only affect the cylinders that it overlaps. Other cylinders in the repetition will be unaffected.

In the scene above, the orange cylinders are primitives, and the white cylinders are clay. Notice that when one of the primitive cylinders is affected by the carving sphere, the other cylinders do not change. However when one of the white clay cylinders has a piece erased, it affects all of the clay repetitions.

When a clay boolean operation is used with the white clay cylinders it seems to only affect a single cylinder, until it is applied when it affects all of the repeated cylinders. 

In other words, with clay, when one instance of a repeated object is changed, all of the instances are changed. With primitives, each instance can be affected independently. 

If you want the repeated instances of a primitive to be affected in the same way, you can use grouping to achieve an effect similar to clay. 

Instead of applying the repetition to the primitive, group all the objects that make the shape that you want to repeat. Then apply the repetition to the group. This way you can scope into the group and make changes that will affect all of the repeated instances of the group.