Can someone simplify Texel Density?

Ramrok

I am having difficulty understanding the right settings to get the best quality textures. I have worked with 4k and 2k maps at default 1024 Texel Density to create a Cotton based Smart Material that I have Saved so I can reuse in the future.

Now that I try to use it on other maps like 512 and 1024 sized maps, I realized it looks different in quality... so I have tried playing around with the Texel Density to change it to various sizes, sometimes really low or really high and sometimes matching the size of the texture map but there is still inconsistent... I have tried changing the Scale on the Smart Material to hopefully improve the quality but still doesnt work.

Below is the same Smart Material used that I adjusted based on Cotton but see the pixels, in other examples the circular fibers appear much bigger. Can someone simplify what I should adjust these settings based on, or which settings I would need adjusted? Thank you.

http://imgur.com/Pv4ptwi

rls76

First thing to note is that no one it seems has a real grasp on texel's and texel density. For all I know my understanding could be off as well. This is what I understand it to be in a nutshell.

Gonna copy and paste some info instead of typing it out from memory
some of the basics, there a lot more to it in how programs handle the density and who actually assigns
a given unit to what the density is per say square meter in real life etc.

Its basically a way to conform textures to the proper realworld scale or to game engine scale. Seems theres different units assigned depending on what its being used for and where its being used.

Really its whatever looks good and what you need, unless your under a pipeline that specifies what to use.

So 2k map with 1024 density will look sharper then a 2k map with 256 density.
Its sort of like taking a image at 100% (for instance the 2k at 1024 density) then blowing it up to 400% screen res (say the 2k at 256 density)
for quality comparison.

So if your UV's shells are all scaled evenly to object or world space you should be able to expect the density to work the same for the whole model
If your UV's are not scaled properly then the density will affect your textures. So check your UV scales, and if you need to scale up the UV
that your having an issue with, etc there's a lot of what not and what ifs involving the texel density usage.


texel = texture pixel
texel density = texels per game unit.

Texel stands for TEXture ELement and is the fundamental unit of texture space.
Textures are represented by texels in the same way that pictures are represented by pixels.
They are the smallest "puzzle piece" of a texture.
They are not the same thing as pixels because a texel is a container for the pixels.

So naturally, texel density is the amount of texture resolution on a mesh.
A high TD equals a detailed texture with lots of information (density)
while a low TD equals blurryness - even if you have a high resolution on your monitor
or on your texture, the TD can still make it very blurry.
The TD is often affected by the size of the texture,
but there are also more factors that determine the TD. These three factors are:


Mesh size
UV-shell size
Texture resolution (texture map size)

Ramrok

Well considering I am not working with real life scales... i guess more TD = more detail so I will keep it as high as possible so 4k and work on optimizing the quality around the highest TD possible.

rls76

Doesn't have to be real world scale, your working in a scale even if its not being referenced to anything.

Ramrok

Either way though, it sounds like higher TD = higher quality

rls76

Too a point, if you look into the program you will find that each of the patterns has a set texel density 1024 2048 etc, what the program is doing is if lets say your working at 4096 density it will take lets say a 2048 pattern and tile it twice where if it was a 1024 it would tile it 4 times and set the repeat slider to 0 but normally higher is better