Partition Mesh

Partition Mesh is an experimental operator which can be used to split the mesh into multiple objects enabling you to use higher subdivision for randomization that is otherwise imposible if the entire mesh is selected specially if the resolution is high.

Figure 1

This uses the same solver as Random Panels to generate the face islands that's split as separate objects. With their isolated and ligher resolution, you can use higher subdivision cuts for the random operators generating smaller details without freezing Blender.

Here are the redo properties and what they do:

Mode

This has 3 options: Random, Sharp and Selection. Random will split the mesh using random solvers, Sharp will split the mesh in sharp edges based on an angle threshold and Selection will split the mesh based on face selection.

Figure 2

Figure 2 shows the Mode: Random.

Figure 3

Figure 3 shows the Mode: Sharp.

Figure 4

Figure 4 shows the Mode: Selection.

These modes operates on selected faces. This is apparent on Mode: Selection but for the other two, Mode: Random will only randomize selected faces and Mode: Sharp will only split sharp edges from selected faces as well.

Solver

This has 3 options: Walk, Radial and Square. Walk will generate random face islands by "walking" randomly on linked faces until it satisfies the panel size property. Radial will randomly select a face and expand from that until it satisfies the panel size property (this typically results to square shaped face islands). Square will select a random face then use the panel size to generate lenth and width resulting to square or rectangle shaped face islands.

Figure 5

Path

This only works for Mode: Walk and has 3 options: None, Shortest and Longest. None will favor no faces based on their edge length, Shortest will favor shorter edges on walked faces and Longest will favor longer edges on walked faces.

Figure 6

This will not work on faces that have the same sizes so be sure to prep the topology if you want to use this effect.

Size Mode

Allows you to use a percentage slider bar or a number based property to modify the Panel Size property.

Figure 7

Panel Size

This has two properties which are the Min and Max. This controls the size of the panel or face islands generated from randomization. This will randomize between the min and max values to get the number for the panel size which is the amount of faces needed to build the face island.

Figure 8

Panel Seed

This will randomize the generated panel or face islands using a seed number.

Figure 9

Cut Method

This has two options: Wrap and Split. Wrap will enable the randomization to include faces around sharp edges. Split will not force the randomization to wrap around sharp edges.

Figure 10

Sharpness

This will only show up when using Mode: Sharp. This is the angle threshold to split edges and limit the randomization.

Figure 11

Basic Use

After splitting the active mesh, you can start using the random operators on each separate objects. In object mode, after randomizing a split object, you can pick another one and press Shift+R to repeat the action.

Figure 12

The repeat command using the Shift+R hotkey only works if you have not used another operation in Blender that registers in the undo history. If it stops working, just use the random operator again on an unrandomized split object then start again.

Figure 13

If you want to merge the split objects as a single mesh like before. Press the Ctrl key then click on the Partition Mesh operator as stated in its use tooltip.

This operator will work on the parenting feature in the add-on but to avoid complications use it on objects that has no complex parent/child connections.

Among the split objects will be a parent the others will be parented to. If you partition a split object, a parent will also be created from this operation which will be parented to the original parent from the first split operation. Picking any of the split object regardless of the parent/child relations will initiate the merging process if you use the required steps mentioned above.

Figure 14

Make sure that the basemesh has enough resolution for the randomization to work.

Figure 15

Using this operator will allow you to reach finer details using simple meshes. Just remember that the source mesh needs to have enough resolution at the start for the randomization. More faces means more islands but don't use too much. This will push the amount of resolution you can use but you still need to be careful with the overall resolution.