Texture overlays are not applying

Symptoms

If one or more of these match what you are seeing, you are on the right page.

• •The texture is selected but the shape looks unchanged
• •The texture is present but invisibly fine or impossibly coarse
• •The texture covers the whole shape when a subtle overlay was wanted
• •Two shapes with the same texture look identical when variation was wanted

Causes and fixes

Ordered from most to least likely. Work down the list — each cause is paired with what to do about it.

1. 1

   The texture layer sits below an opaque fill layer.

   The material stack renders top to bottom. Drag the texture layer above the solid or gradient fill it should overlay.

2. 2

   Scale is at an extreme.

   Scale sets the size of the texture pattern — smaller values give finer texture. At very small scales the texture reads as flat noise, and at very large scales a single feature can fill the shape.

3. 3

   The layer opacity or blend mode is wrong for an overlay.

   Lower the texture layer opacity and set its blend mode to Overlay or Multiply for a subtle surface treatment rather than a flat replacement of the fill beneath.

4. 4

   The same seed is producing identical texture on every shape.

   Change the Seed value to get a different random variation of the same texture type.

5. 5

   The color mode does not suit the texture type.

   Textures support Monochrome, Color-Tinted or Full Color depending on type. A monochrome mode on a colored design can look like nothing was applied.

Related pages