texturing question

[simon]

when you made you'r model in 3D, and you unwrap it, can you make the texture in a few pictures or does the entire weapon need to be 1 flat picture ?

for example (i have this)
tex-handle.jpg
tex-main.jpg
tex-main-top.jpg
tex-pin.jpg
tex-top.jpg
(the main object main.jpg = 1024x1024)
the others are smaller

will that work in-game ? or will i need to redo that in 1 big picture ?

thanks

 

[Grey]

Speaking as a programmer - every texture change is gonna hurt performance.

And for those who are thinking about disagreeing with me, goto both Nvidia's and ATI's website's developer sections and read up on maximizing performance.

Back to your problem - if you can't use one texture, try to limit yourself to two, but to me it sounds like your not uv mapping properly. Start looking for tutorials.

 

[ankalar]

If it's a weapon, you should be able to fit the whole thing onto one 1024x1024 UV map. If you have accessories on the weapon that are going to be used on other models as well, then you can use a separate UV map, 256x256 or maybe 512x512, for those.

To answer your question, yes, you can use more than one texture for each model.

 

[Grey]

But whether he should or not is another matter. Certainly 5 textures isn't needed, and an extra 1024x1024 texture would be better for performance than several smaller ones that could fit onto a 1024x1024(or smaller if possible, the point is less textures is better) if combined.

Say ankalar you see my question in the USP thread about doing a firearm skinning mini tutorial?

 

[ankalar]

I saw it, but I can't really do one now.

 

[Grey]

Aww that's too bad. Perhaps just keep it mind. You have some awesome work in your gallery

 

[mindless_moder]

i agree you should constrain weapon map sizes to 1024 x 1024or make it about 512x512 if you are using multiple maps.

 

[simon]

ok thanks guys, we are already changing it, thats for the info, he is now doing the textures at 8000x8000 and will then resize them to 1024 for the entire model, so that will be 1 picture then

again thanks :cheers:

 

[Incitatus]

lol why the hell 8000x8000? what a total waste of effort and pc power.
2048x2048, then either keep it or scale it down to 1024 that's what I'm doing.

 

[Stone]

Originally posted by Incitatus
lol why the hell 8000x8000? what a total waste of effort and pc power.
2048x2048, then either keep it or scale it down to 1024 that's what I'm doing.

You make it at 8000x8000 so you can add lots of stupid detail etc, and then you scale it down to the size that you need, the bigger the better i say

 

[Incitatus]

that's the point any detail that you can make in 8000x8000, that you can't make in 2048x2048 will be lost when scaling

 

[Incitatus]

and your texture will become very very blurry, because you're averaging 8 pixels wide

 

[ankalar]

It's a lot better to use the size that you will most likely use as long as you won't need to scale it up. That way, if you need to scale it down, you won't lose that much. So if you had a character model that might use 2048^2 textures, then texture it in 2048^2, you can always scale it down if you wanted it 1024^2 or even 512^2.

 

[Incitatus]

Originally posted by ankalar
It's a lot better to use the size that you will most likely use as long as you won't need to scale it up. That way, if you need to scale it down, you won't lose that much. So if you had a character model that might use 2048^2 textures, then texture it in 2048^2, you can always scale it down if you wanted it 1024^2 or even 512^2.

exactly, that's what I've been saying

 

[ankalar]

I know, but I just like typing. :bounce:

 

[Aike]

*snickers*

8kx8k?

thats...um....big. If you scale it down, you will lose most of the detail anyhow?

much better to paint your bits and pieces in individual humanely sized textures, then paste them nicely into a single piccy of 512x512 (or 1k or whatever).

No reason to have them all in 8k pics from scratch, other than for the sheer cohones of being able to say you did it... its going to take far longer shovelling them around and clogging up memory until you scale em down anyhow.

Not even professional film effects use sizes like 8k x 8k very often, if at all...

Cheers,
Aike