Textel Density Division (Or I cant concentrate)

oXYnary

Trying to figure out the textel density of the following.

Texture is 2048, units are cm

Using an already created model with textools I get 1458 pixels and 83 units. Im unsure what to take from this. Does it mean the combined square area of the pixels is 2952 without spacing? So should I be divinding 1458/83 to get the pixels per unit?

So 17ppc ??

So a 4096=240units or 2.4 meters.

>IF< this is correct. How does that stack up these days for textel density for games? I would rather make the "rule" for this project 4096=200cm or 2meters, so 20pixels per cm. Too dense?

Obscura

I can't give you the answer you are looking for, but what you are saying is way too dense. Detail maps, and shader tricks is the way to go if you want acceptable framerate. The 20 pixels per centimeter would mean that you can view a half milimeter small thing at good quality. You clearly never see this in any game.

oXYnary

Thanks for the reply Obscura. Then I have to be doing my math wrong or totally misunderstanding how the textools (3ds Max) measurement works. Would there be another way to find pixel density from an already made texture and object?

EarthQuake

4k for 2m seems way too dense. 1k per meter would be very dense and 512x512 per m would be much more reasonable. This all comes down to how close the camera can get to objects and your intended resolution as well (720 vs 1080 vs 4k for instance).

512 per m means that framing a character (roughly 2M tall) standing in front of a wall, the wall would be 1024 pixels tall when your resolution would be 1080 tall at 1080p, pretty much a 1:1 match. If your camera can get a lot closer than that, you would want to bump your density up, or use detail textures or something for large surfaces. Of course, when you get into mapping complex 3d objects like characters or props, its much harder to measure linear texal density, though you can use checkered textures to visualize it.

oXYnary

THanks EQ. How do I get the current texture density of a nonlinear object that already is to size? If I can find that out it would help with deciding where to go. (Assuming normalized UVs)

EarthQuake

Apply a checkered texture of a known resolution to said model, model a plane of a know units next to it, apply the same checkered texture to the plane, and then scale the uvs until the checkers roughly match. The % you have to scale the uvs can be used to figure out the rough texal density.

That *should* work.

ZacD

It'd be cool if there was a way to visualize texel density compared against screen resolution, not sure exactly how you'd do it though.

oXYnary

I tried that initially. Surface is too curved to get a good consistent match or maybe I don't have good visualization skills. Textools 3d to UV flat (which would help) doesn't use the same scale as the object. Let me see if Ninja around since he made textools.

EQ, let me reiterate what you said so I can see if I'm getting this.
-5.12 ppc is more in line with modern environments?
-10.24 ppc isnt normally used
-20.28 ppc wtf are you thinking??!!!

Where do characters stand in all this? I know they are denser, but as an example something as old as UT2K4 had a 2048 for their characters which were about 6ft (1.8M) so ~11.3 ppc. I mention this because assuming the density of all assets has gone up since then and its still over twice the 5.12ppc you mention.

FWIW I'm thinking 1080+ since FP and VR. So your information about density standards is helpful!

(Also thanks everyone for not bringing inches into this.

EarthQuake

I'm not aware of any standards here, its all very project specific depending on the target hardware, how close you're going to get, art style, and shaders (if you're using detail maps or not).

As far as how you would match the grid up with a character, just try to do it vertically I would say. I it shouldn't be that hard. You don't need to get a perfect match, I would assume a ballpark figure would be good enough for the purposes of this discussion.

If you're doing VR and you can get really close, you may want much higher texel than what I mentioned in my previous post. The most straight forward way to see how much texel density you actually need is to create a test scene, apply a huge texture (8 or 4k), and then manually edit the mip levels of the .dds file. Color each mip level a distinct color, and then you'll get a good idea of what distance you need to be at for each mip to be beneficial.

ZacD

Ppc is going to vary a ton though when you are comparing how assets are being used, you kinda need to break it into ppc for hero level, gameplayc, and far. Like a character's face is going to have a higher Ppc and a FPS gun.

CreativeSheep

oXYnary wrote: »

Trying to figure out the textel density of the following.

Texture is 2048, units are cm

Using an already created model with textools I get 1458 pixels and 83 units. Im unsure what to take from this. Does it mean the combined square area of the pixels is 2952 without spacing? So should I be divinding 1458/83 to get the pixels per unit?

So 17ppc ??

So a 4096=240units or 2.4 meters.

>IF< this is correct. How does that stack up these days for textel density for games? I would rather make the "rule" for this project 4096=200cm or 2meters, so 20pixels per cm. Too dense?

You mean how many pixels per unit, for example if you have a 4K texture, how many pixels per grid ? If so how did you calculate this ?