more draw calls or higher res textures
polycounter lvl 8
Hey guys, this is probably a strange or silly question, but it's bugging me.
I'm making the steering wheel for a race car. It has several bits:
Buttons and Dials (6 buttons, 4 dials, half on either side)
LED MoTec screen (the two big rectangles you see in the middle)
Center wheel Bracket (the block the buttons and screens are on, this is carbon fiber)
Wheel Grips (what the driver is going to grab, leather or alcantara or something).
Now, I have the Bracket and Grips unwrapped and ready. The buttons and MoTec aren't an issue, they're easy and I know what to do.
The problem is that I don't know what to do for the Bracket and Grips.
I COULD make them (and the buttons) into one single 1024 texture.
OR
I COULD put the buttons on their own 256 texture, and massively tile the Bracket and the Grips with a seamless 64x64 Carbon Fiber weave and Leather/Alcantara texture respectively.
If it matters, I'm using the GMotor2 Engine, for Race On (GTR Evo, Race 07, etc).
tl;dr
I'm just confused as to where the increased draw calls (+2 more textures) outweigh the bigger texture size (1024x1024 or 256+64+64). Textures are going to be DXT3 or DXT5 dds files, because that's what the engine likes.
I'm making the steering wheel for a race car. It has several bits:
Buttons and Dials (6 buttons, 4 dials, half on either side)
LED MoTec screen (the two big rectangles you see in the middle)
Center wheel Bracket (the block the buttons and screens are on, this is carbon fiber)
Wheel Grips (what the driver is going to grab, leather or alcantara or something).
Now, I have the Bracket and Grips unwrapped and ready. The buttons and MoTec aren't an issue, they're easy and I know what to do.
The problem is that I don't know what to do for the Bracket and Grips.
I COULD make them (and the buttons) into one single 1024 texture.
OR
I COULD put the buttons on their own 256 texture, and massively tile the Bracket and the Grips with a seamless 64x64 Carbon Fiber weave and Leather/Alcantara texture respectively.
If it matters, I'm using the GMotor2 Engine, for Race On (GTR Evo, Race 07, etc).
tl;dr
I'm just confused as to where the increased draw calls (+2 more textures) outweigh the bigger texture size (1024x1024 or 256+64+64). Textures are going to be DXT3 or DXT5 dds files, because that's what the engine likes.
Replies
It was speed you were concerned with right? I didn't really see you ask that specifically unless I am going blind. Really tired tonight.
Apart from the megatexture itself (I think Minecraft uses something similar?), is there anything special about the new ID 5 engine that would make it more prone to performance gains from the megatexture?
You can do some UV tricks to get a portion of the texture to tile, if you like. By adding more edges to the mesh where you want the texture to tile, and slicing up and superimposing the UVs.
But generally it would be unique texture space for most of the bkg area. Easier to do, and less vertices to store. You might be able to mirror it though.
Megatexture requires a good streaming system, so yes the feature is particular to the engine. I don't know how it affects draw calls though, since presumably different surfaces would need different material settings... it probably isn't a single material for everything.