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View Full Version : when texturing for gaming purposes...

08-31-2006, 06:55 PM
when texturing for gaming purposes... Do you create the texture sets larger say 2048x2048 then texture them in ps, then bring them back down to 1024x1024 to retain most of the detail? I'm trying to get into the gaming industry and have lots of niggly little questions.

08-31-2006, 07:10 PM
Yes, that is the way some people do it.

08-31-2006, 07:10 PM
It depends. Lots of people like to work at the final size (1024^2), because that way they have complete control over all the pixels. Other people like to work big and then resize it, and maybe do a little touchup at the end. I prefer to work at whatever the texture is going to end up being, since I don't waste too much time detailing small stuff that just looks bad when it's resized and has to be redone.

08-31-2006, 07:12 PM
I try to keep the texture as close to the final size as possible, as not to lose the small detail and sharpness when resizing. Ben Mathis has a great article on his site about this very topic, Its worth a read.

08-31-2006, 07:22 PM
Cool. cheers for the responses guys!

08-31-2006, 07:34 PM
I started painting them at 150% or 200% target size, but I just paint them at 100% nowadays, there's no real advantage to painting them larger and you get more control over them at 100%.

RO made a good point the other day though, that if you author a texture at double size and your target texture res changes, it's much easier to revert back to the double size texture than redo the entire thing from scratch at double the size.

09-01-2006, 01:49 AM
painting at 200% is nice up until you start needing to add fine details. you simply can't get fine lines (scratches, vents, etc) as sharp with a scale down as you can by painting at true resolution.

If the project you're working on doesn't have art requirements set in stone (like at the beginning of a project) it may be better to work at 2x resolution so you don't have to recreate things if the specs get bumped up.

Also, with the way I work, (lots of layers and layer masks) it makes it easier to upscale, because I can upscale more easily. Most of my diffuse maps will have a texture overlay layer or two, a color layer, a lighting layer, and then many different detail object layers (bolts and scratches and whatnot). I can easily upscale the lighting and the color, and use the layer mask of the photo overlay layer to fill in more of the texture without upscaling the texture, and then I can reapply the different details, etc, which makes it easier to upscale than if I painted it all on a couple of layers (or god forbid one layer :D)

A lot of people are convinced when they start out that the "antialiasing" effect of scaling something down allows you to cram in subpixel detail or something...what it really winds up doing is making details less focused and sharp looking, though.

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09-01-2006, 01:49 AM