Effects of surface reliefs on texturing multi-component functional materials, of thickness in the order of 50-100 mum are reported. As an example, YBa2CU3Oz crystals were biaxially aligned on untextured polycrystalline Ag-Pd substrates. Artificial surface reliefs resulted in up to 75-85% alignment within 10degrees of 0.1-1 mm square crystals of YBa2CU3Oz in the case of syminetry-matching patterns. Unlike artificial epitaxy of thin (<1 mum) films, the crystal alignment was achieved reproducibly by mechanical patterning of the substrates at a much larger, sub-millimeter length scale. The origin of texture formation-based on various factors like topographic wall effects, crystallization pressure, surface tension, solute redistribution and capillarity-is discussed. Possible applications of this approach for superconducting coated conductors or in the field of multiseeded substrates are highlighted. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.