Inset

The Random Panels Inset type is the default and legacy action for this operator. This uses face groups or panel islands to create the panel cuts effect.

Figure 1

Here are the redo properties and what they do:

Type

This has 2 properties: Inset and Bevel. This lets you choose what type of operation to use when making the panel cuts.

Solver

This has 3 options: Walk, Radial and Square. Walk will create a panel island by "walking" from a starting face then randomizing between its neighboring faces for the next step. Radial will create the panel island by expanding from an initial face. Square will create square or rectangular islands by walking the length and the width of the panel island then filling the faces between these dimensions.

Figure 2

Path

This only shows up when Solver: Walk is used and has 3 options: None, Shortest and Longest. None will favor no edges and will walk every edge until if finds the next face or step. Shortest will favor the shortest edge of a face when selecting the next face or step. Longest will favor the longest edge of a face when selecting the next face or step.

Figure 3

This does not work when the selected faces are perfect squares.

Notches

This has two properties: Count and Size. Count determines the number of notches and Size sets the amount of faces in a notch.

Figure 4

The notch effect is dependent on subdivision. The higher it is, the smaller the notches will be.

Notch Seed

This randomizes the notches using a seed number.

Size Mode

This has 2 options: Percentage and Number. Percentage will let you use a percentage slider to set the panel size. Number will let you use integers when setting the panel size.

Panel Amount

This lets you use a percentage slider to remove some or all of the panel islands generated.

The Invert Panel Amount toggle lets you invert its effect, by default the smaller islands will be removed first but enabling this will take out the bigger islands first.

The Remove Panel toggle will remove the faces where the panel island should have developed instead of flattening them, creating a hole in that area.

Panel Size

This lets you set the minimum and maximum sizes of the panel islands.

Lower values means more panel islands or details but will cause more processing overhead.

Panel Seed

This randomizes the size of a panel island using a seed value.

Subdivision

The amount of subdivision to use on the selected faces. This results to more details because of the increased number of faces relative to the panel sizes used.

Be careful of increasing the subdivision too much especially with already high resolution face selections to avoid lags and freezes.

Smoothing

This has 2 properties: Factor and Repeat. Factor determines the strength of the smoothing to be applied on the random mesh. Repeat sets the number of times the smoothing will be applied.

Using the Base Smooth toggle will let you apply the smoothing before any subdivision is used on the random mesh instead.

The Area Smooth will only appear if the Merge Panel toggle is used and allows you to only smooth the area where the selected faces were.

Margin

This allows you to create a margin between each individual panel islands.

When Merge Panel is used, this will have 2 properties instead: In and Out. In will create margin for faces that are indented or is extruded towards the source mesh. Out will create margin for faces that are outdented or is extruded away from the source mesh.

Even Offset

This has 2 options: On or Off. On will inset or extrude the faces of the panel islands evenly or straight. Off will inset or extrude the faces of the panel islands unevenly making rounded edges on sharp angled edges.

Its main use besides the design effect is to avoid spiking geometry when Off is used.

Thickness

This determines the thickness or scale of the top faces of the panel islands when insetted or extruded.

When the Uniform Thickness toggle is disabled, you can use Min/Max properties to randomize this effect instead.

Thickness Seed

This randomizes the thickness property when Uniform Thickness is disabled using a seed number.

Depth

This lets you set the depth or height of the insetted/extruded panel island faces using the Min/Max properties.

Using the Uniform Depth toggle will let you use a constant depth value for all panel islands instead.

Depth Seed

This randomizes the depth property when Uniform Depth is disabled using a seed number.

Cut Method

This has 2 options: Wrap and Split. Wrap will let the panel islands expand around sharp angled edges using an angle threshold. Split will split the edges on sharp angled edges using an angle threshold.

Cut Angle

The angle threshold used by the Cut Method property to determine which edges are split.

Bevel Offset

This bevels the corner vertices of the panel islands based on an angle threshold.

You can use the Uniform Bevel toggle to use a single value to control the bevel offset instead of randomizing between the min/max properties.

Bvl Seg/Angle

This has 2 properties: Segment and Limit. Segment determines the number of vertices to use for the bevel segment. Limit is the angle threshold for a vertex to be considered for beveling.

Bevel Seed

Randomizes the bevel effect using a seed number.

Clear Faces

This has 3 options: None, Inner and Outer. None has no effect. Inner removes the top faces of the panel islands leaving only the panel cut faces. Outer removes the panel cut or border faces leaving only the top faces of the panel islands.

Triangulate

The amount of faces to be triangulated in the face selection.

Limit Smooth

This has 4 options: None, Base, Top and Random. None has no effect. Base will mark sharp the border edges of the panel islands. Top will mark sharp the border edges of the top faces of the panel islands. Random will randomize between using Base or Top.

Shading

This only shows up when using Limit Smooth: None and has 3 options: Smooth, By Angle and Flat. Smooth will smooth shade the resulting mesh. By Angle will mark sharp edges based on a 30° angle. Flat will use flat shading on the resulting mesh.

Material Index

The Material Index property lets the resulting cloth sim mesh inherit a material from the active or work mesh.

The default value of -1 means it will use the active material in the work mesh if that material exists.

Using 0 and above means you will be using the 1st material in the material stack when using 0, the 2nd material when using 1 and so forth.

Using a material stack number when that material does not exist will assign no material to the resulting panel cut mesh.

Use Mirror

This uses the mirror modifier of the source mesh to create a symmetrical result. Disabling this will use an applied version of the mesh to create asymmetry instead.

Merge Panel

This will merge the random result on the source mesh making the process destructive.

The subdivision you're using will also be applied on the source mesh when merged so be careful.

Floater Mesh

This shows up when using Clear Faces: Inner or Outer. Disables all the ray visibility of the resulting random mesh except for the camera.

In Cycles, this will make it look like the mesh is part of the object underneath it with ray visiblity like reflections, shadows etc are disabled.

Mark Sharp Only

Mark sharps the panel cut edges only so you can use the Panel Cutter add-on to cut them instead.

Use Vertex Group

Automatically assigns the top faces of the panel islands in a vertex group for easy selection after the operation.

Clip Center

Clips the center vertices together in the x, y and z toggle using the distance threshold. This is used to merge the border edges of the plate details together in the symmetry lines removing the split detail there.

You can enable/disable this effect on a particular axis using the x, y and z toggles and control how much of the vertices beyond the symmetry lines are affected using the distance property.

Limited Dissolve

This uses limited dissolve on the source mesh which is primarily used to get rid of subdivision banding on cylindrical or organic surfaces.

You can, of course, use this to just lower the resolution of the resulting mesh.

This gets rid of the quad structure of the topology and will result in ngons but to combat this for curved or organic surfaces, start with a higher resolution where you can have a higher face count at just subdivision level 1 for more details without the banding. The banding usually starts at subdivision level 2 and becomes very noticeable at higher subdivision levels after that.

Max Angle

The maximum angle threshold for the limited dissolve property. Lower values preserves more form and shape of the resulting mesh.