FPS weapons texture resolution
polycounter lvl 9
Hi guys,I was curious to know what is the current trend about texture resolution for FPS weapons games, like Crysis 3 weapons and similar.
I'm doing a weapon myself,I soon have to texture it and I was wondering if a 4k texture for portfolio purpose would be seen as acceptable for presenting a FPS game weapon or if is still too far from the current industry standard and thus seen as a "noob" work (because I am not actually showing that I can make a good looking weapon in a 2k texture,wich should be more challenging)
Can you share some light on the subject please? :poly124:
I'm doing a weapon myself,I soon have to texture it and I was wondering if a 4k texture for portfolio purpose would be seen as acceptable for presenting a FPS game weapon or if is still too far from the current industry standard and thus seen as a "noob" work (because I am not actually showing that I can make a good looking weapon in a 2k texture,wich should be more challenging)
Can you share some light on the subject please? :poly124:
Replies
If you do this, your texture should look good at 4k, 2k 1k, even 512.
About the geometry detail,I've kept that pretty much uniform all over the weapon,thinking that could have been a plus for screenshot from particular angulations for the portfolio,but I'll do my best during the unwrap to put the most of the detail where is needed.
Allright then,I'll go for a 4k
What trick do you guys use to give to an important UV shell (like the ones around the iron sight) the proper ammount of UV space that allows it to retain and display sharply fine details like dust and scratches?
Because of course,there is an ammount of UV space above wich the UVshell would be so big that you can keep zooming on it and still have crisp details(like zooming to an atomic level...),even if totally useless,so do you guys use some kind of trick to assign to it just the right ammount of space?(not too much,just right.)
Or is a bit like a...random thing,where you make it bigger than the less import UV shells (of course) and somethimes it happens that is too big and ends up stealing space from the lesser important UVshells with no reason?
When scaling uvs its really important to remember that you're dealing with uvspace squared so:
200x200% = 4x pixel detail
150x150% = 2x pixel detail
125x125% = 1.5 pixel detail
75x75% = 0.5 pixel detail
50x50% = 0.25 pixel detail, or only 1 pixel per 4 pixels on the base uv layout.
For good measure:
1024x1024 is 4x 512x512, not twice
2048x2048 is another 4x
4096x4096 is another 4x
4x4k is 16x 1x1k, and 64x 512x512, both in pixels and memory allocation
Depending on how small and or how far you will zoom in on your iron sights, you may want to scale uvs up to 200x200%, but that may be excessive and any more than 200% is certainly excessive, to the point where you may have one noticeably low res chunk next to much higher res. The end goal is to try and make it so the player will not notice your texture resolution, so it all sort of needs to blend together, and you will need to experiment to find what works best.
2 +25% = 2.5
2.5 + 25% = 3.125
2 + 50% = 3
Unless that's what you meant by "another 125%" in the first place
Also if you're using modo Farfarer's Texel Density toolkit is quite handy for this. When I start UVing I'll set a base texel density (So everything is uniform) and can be easily adjusted based on importance. Makes keeping track of texel density easy too.
@perna: actually it has to go in a indie game,I think I didn't metioned it, the portfolio-focus thing is just me trying to get the most out of what I am doing and the 4k texture is a direct request from the Lead of the project,wich I have doubt in the first place since I never heard of people using it for an ingame weapon,so this the reason of my first question.
I am in the middle of the unwrap right now,hope you guys drops in my other topic in the next few days so I can show you the unwrap and have your critiques about it
Yeah 125x125% for important stuff and then another 125x125% on top of that for the closeup stuff, about 150x150% total, or 156.25x156.25% if we're being anal
Even if its for a portfolio piece I would still stick by the same UV theory, and not only that, but also spend more time detailing the areas that are going to be seen up close in FPV that other areas. For a folio I would still consider the FPV angle render to be the money shot, and its just a good idea to use common industry practices. Too many people make assets like this where everything has the same amount of detail, even the stuff nobody will ever see.
If its for you portfolio, maybe skip the scaling down unimportant uv bits, but at 2-4k its not going to make a big difference. You shouldn't scale things down so far that its going to be real obvious either way.
And also, yeah. More resolution just means more, it doesn't mean better. More pixels, more work depending on how you work (could be a small or large amount).
Actually,I still don't know how I work in the texturing phase...thing is,I know all it need to be done up to the texturing phase,this because I've always done it for the previous assets to be able to bake normal and ao, problem is I textured very few of my models,so I don't have developed yet a reliable workflow,so if I try to image how I am going to do this,the first thing that comes in mind is me randomly trying brushes in photoshop and dropping random images to see what I get,and this already sucks :poly141:
So I clearly know that I am lacking the knowledges and a workflow to properly texture this,and I also don't want to rush this just to get it done,I want this to look good so I think that after the bakes,the first thing will be to check all the hardsurface texturing material that I can find.
I know already some link (like the blade by racer445 and the one from Stefan Morrell called "hard surface textures") but I would like to see some more,like videotutorials that simply show everything one has to do inside photoshop, because I feel like I am still missing too much.
So if you guys know any good link I've missed,please let me know :poly124:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=118043