texture size
 

ok - probably a dumb question - but i was having some real problems opening my work scene last night. a runtime error would come up and it would say something about insufficient memory or memory low.

I think it has something to do with my texture maps - they are all 2048. :blush: i meant to reduce them but kind of forgot.

so my question is, what size should texture maps be? i guess it has something to do where an object sits in a scene, but is 2048 way too big? should i cut everything in half?also, do you usually use just one shader per object and map different attributes?

here's a pic of my scene - i got it to open this morning, but i'm guessing i'll have further problems as there's more to add.

feel free to bitch slap me. :)

Whenever I make texture maps I usually have them at no more than 1024*1024. For the objects shaders, I usually use a different shader for each item, but only one per object and then map the textures for the individual parts of the object(if that makes sense).

Chris

Hi Arran, first you need to decide what your final render resolution is going to be because

a) You can determine what size the texture is going to appear in the final image.

b)What level of detail you need which depends on how close to camera it will be seen

An example might be of a character and lets say that your final shot resolution will be for TV (i believe you are in the UK) so it will be Pal 720x 576 so at 1:1 if you are doing a full screen shot of the char then he will be seen at 576 pixels high so if you don't intend to zoom in then a texure of 512 x 512 might do and definately 1024 x1024.
If you zoom in you will go beyond 1:1 and so the texture will blur . To stop this from happening you will have to increase the texture resolution so lets say you will zoom in to a close up of his arm and hands, if they fill the screen then the arm and hand texture alone would have to be at least 576 pixels and if your whole body is one map then it might have to be 2K just so that the arm and hands are at least 512 when zoomed in.The other option is to break up the texture maps so you have more than one for the character and only have larger textures where you need it, so you could have 512 x 512 on the legs and body and maybe 1024 x 1024 on the arms and hands and perhaps the head if you intend to zoom in on that.

Some people use a rule that the texture should be twice the final resolution but really you can optimize this a lot if things are just in the background and will never be seen up close.

Hope this helps a little

Heres a link that might explain it a little to you

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/tu...esolution-tips
regards JS

hey - thanks for the info bendingiscool and jsprogg - that makes a lot of sense. :beer:

yeah - i've definitely been making all of my textures way too big and have also been a bit trigger happy with my shaders. ok - i think i have a better idea of what to do now. cheers. :)