Lamont
02-16-2003, 12:30 PM
Ok, when you're texturing fo a PC game, the sizes you use are very forgiving. You are using 256x256 and larger. But for the console folks, the reality is that you use 256x256 and lower because the end user is on nothing more than 640x480 screen res.
Another thing is craming as much texture into as little space as possible.
Say you have 3 large props (buildings and such) and 4 smaller props (man-sized items)? And they were all at 512x512 (it's a good rule to author your textures at twice the res).
If I tell you that you can take all of those and cram them onto one 512x512, you'd have called me a liar.
This is what you do:
Go ahead and texture your objects at 512x512. Now make a flat plane of equal height and width with no sub-divisions. Now Sub-divide that with "Faceted" selected. Now you have 4 quads within that same square. Select the lower left and sub-divide that. Now you have 4 little ones made from the mid-sized one.
Next step is to planar map that sqare. Give it a clever name like City_Block. Now go to the 1st object (we're gonna assume it's a building..) and copy the UV and paste them into the new City_Block UV's. Once there, put the sqare as a background and move the building to one of the sub-divisions, so it's contained within it's own. Do this for the rest of the objects. The larger ones get the larger squares, the smaller get the smaller 4.
Save this and move to Layout. Apply surface baker and use the City_Block UV's. Turn off Anti-Aliasing and illumination (unless you had that in mind, then go ahead) and make sure Continuous Object is selected. Then bake it.
You will have 7 objects down to one 512x512. There may be a few pixels to clean up, but this is always the case, even when you de-res by hand.
Any questions just blast me an e-mail or something.
Another thing is craming as much texture into as little space as possible.
Say you have 3 large props (buildings and such) and 4 smaller props (man-sized items)? And they were all at 512x512 (it's a good rule to author your textures at twice the res).
If I tell you that you can take all of those and cram them onto one 512x512, you'd have called me a liar.
This is what you do:
Go ahead and texture your objects at 512x512. Now make a flat plane of equal height and width with no sub-divisions. Now Sub-divide that with "Faceted" selected. Now you have 4 quads within that same square. Select the lower left and sub-divide that. Now you have 4 little ones made from the mid-sized one.
Next step is to planar map that sqare. Give it a clever name like City_Block. Now go to the 1st object (we're gonna assume it's a building..) and copy the UV and paste them into the new City_Block UV's. Once there, put the sqare as a background and move the building to one of the sub-divisions, so it's contained within it's own. Do this for the rest of the objects. The larger ones get the larger squares, the smaller get the smaller 4.
Save this and move to Layout. Apply surface baker and use the City_Block UV's. Turn off Anti-Aliasing and illumination (unless you had that in mind, then go ahead) and make sure Continuous Object is selected. Then bake it.
You will have 7 objects down to one 512x512. There may be a few pixels to clean up, but this is always the case, even when you de-res by hand.
Any questions just blast me an e-mail or something.