What texel ratio / pixel density should I use for a PS4 game ???

bakagone

Hello everybody, my question is simple (or not ><):

What texel ratio (pixel ratio/texel density/pixel density or whatever you call it) should I use for a PS4/One game ???

In easy words : how much pixels should I use for 1 meter in my game ?

Taking in consideration my goal is to push the quality as far as possible, to have a graphics quality line matching The Order or the new Uncharted.

To be more precise, this question worth for an adventure/platform game (third person). I was thinking about a ratio of 512px/meter but I'm not very confident in that choice, PLEASE HELP ME ! (I wonder how much is used in The Order or Uncharted PS4...).

Lamont

Are you really outputting to PS4/One? Or just a general question? If you want to make it look good, make it look as best as you can... 4k textures and such...

Questions like these are kind of hard to give a good/decent response, it`s something your engineer should answer.

Kwramm

has nothing to do with PS4. Depends on output resolution and how close you allow your camera to get to the textured surfaces. Then of course you'll also want to consider how many assets you have, how many textures, on what media you'll ship / i.e. how much space you have. Also consider if it's really necessary to have uniform texel ratio. Maybe variable is a better way to go, depending on asset, style, etc. And you really want to avoid wasting time making too large textures just to scale them down by half before shipping.

i.e. there's no easy answer.

bakagone

Lamont wrote: »

Are you really outputting to PS4/One?

Yes I am.
And about using only 4k textures, this is of course not possible, as Kwramm says I have to consider how many assets I have, how many textures, etc... And as it is an entire game... a lot in each level !!! so I can't just put 4k everywhere.

Kwramm wrote: »

Depends on output resolution and how close you allow your camera to get to the textured surfaces. Then of course you'll also want to consider how many assets you have, how many textures, on what media you'll ship.

That's why I quote The Order or Uncharted, the camera will basically be the same, so we will be able to be pretty close of the objects. The goal is for now a release on full HD screen, so basically 2Kx1K screen. I calculated that an object of half a meter will take 512px of the screen...
This mean 1 meter = 1024px for the optimal quality... but is it really possible to use such a big ratio for an entire game ??? (with all the assets respecting this ratio!).
Of course I also want to use smaller ratio : but it will be only for backgroud and places the player can't reach.

Kevin Albers

'There is no easy answer' really is the answer.

You have mostly answered you own question. 512 pixels per meter can look great, but you can't texture everything in a big world at that level of resolution.

Many games/teams texture stuff such that things that are likely be be near the camera use a high resolution (e.g. 512/meter), and the resolution is lowered for things that often won't be near the camera and/or are simply big.

Lamont

bakagone wrote: »

Yes I am.
And about using only 4k textures, this is of course not possible, as Kwramm says I have to consider how many assets I have, how many textures, etc... And as it is an entire game... a lot in each level !!! so I can't just put 4k everywhere

Which is why I asked because this is something your engineer should be involved in.

• We have no clue what kind of game.
• Quality of the engine.
• Quality of the shaders used.
• Target output resolution...
• Etc...

Too many variables for such a question. Good luck.

bakagone

Thanks for your answers,

@Lamont : True, but the engineers here have still no idea about were we put our feet >< and that's my dilemma.

This is for a top quality project, all with PBR and in-house engine wich can be conpared to UE4 in term of rendering quality.

Add3r

Get benchmarks. Build everything with max quality (2k and 4k textures) in mind, and scale down where necessary. Everything is circumstantial, especially console development, at least you have set hardware constraints.

walreu

Add3r wrote: »

Get benchmarks. Build everything with max quality (2k and 4k textures) in mind, and scale down where necessary. Everything is circumstantial, especially console development, at least you have set hardware constraints.

+1 to this. Go with the 2k and 4k and only start dropping sizes down when you start getting performance problems. And even then make double sure it's the texture sizes causing it and nothing else..

Lamont

Getting in on the ground level of figuring out what works and what doesn`t is a huge task. You`re gonna have to poke, prod and push (and trim) a lot to get the level you want.

(benchmark)

Deathstick

Make a test scene with as high-def textures as you'd like to go and around the same detail-resolution as you'd like to hit. Then you can always do stupid crap like spamming different unique models and textures all over the place to try and get a better grasp for things. Just spamming one single asset all over the place won't really help judge the framerate as then you'd only be dealing with instances and one or two materials.

Also keep in mind such things as particle FX, how many NPCs are there and how CPU heavy their AI is, (first person-shooter commonly having 5-15 NPCs max active at a time, something like Mount and Blade having 200+ NPCs on screen fighting),

anything physics related,

how far the player can see without visibility being blocked,

is the lighting 100% dynamic, static/baked, or somewhere in between,

how much post-processing is affecting everything,

does this scene require reflections/mirror surfaces/water puddles, is the water a cheap plane or is it a fully-tessellated dynamic ocean like Black flag,

the settings for anti-aliasing and screen resolution,

do you use environment fog to help hide the culling of objects in the distance or multiple LODs, is everything not seen being culled properly,

can you swap out complex calculations/scripts for simpler ones if the object is running but can currently not be seen by the player (IE the X-series/X3 Terran Conflict in particular had a completely different set of scripts running to simulate a ship's actions and combat that was "in-sector" versus one that was "out-of-sector." It was kind of funny as the way it was handling in-sector certain types of ships would perform much better/be able to eliminate entire squadrons of fighters but the way in which it was simulated out of sector would cause it to be instantly destroyed by the same squadron)


So yeah, I'd say you can't go wrong with 2k/4k textures but of course test it out and downscale when necessary. Multiple factors other than texture resolution are also at play when it comes to frame rates.

When in doubt, test it out! is my philosophy.