Texel Density for Atlas textures - I just don't get it

PolyPushr

Hey guys, I've just started a new job at a much bigger studio and at my previous one we didn't care much for texel density, so rather than measuring out UV layouts I would just eyeball it and if it looks good in game it got signed off! (Silly I know) I'm now at this much bigger and better studio and they use a 256x1m texel density. I'm tasked with making a foliage atlas to roughly this scale. But in all honesty I just can't wrap my head around how to lay out a UV like this.  Am I overthinking this too much? I understand the need for a correct texel density but just don't know where to start on working to this scale, especially with foliage. 

Eric Chadwick

So that's a target of 256 pixels of texture across a distance of 1 meter in the game. Measure a branch with leaves on it. If the branch is about a meter long, then it should be 256 pixels long. Simple.

musashidan

What program are you using? There are scripts to auto-scale UVs to a specific texel target. One thing to do is grab a character from the pipeline and insert it into a 'texel setup' scene. Just have the character and a mockup wall with a brick texture at your 256. You can then import assets into this scene to gauge the scale(or even better set this scene up in-engine)

Taylor Brown

This was the video that finally got the concept through my thick skull https://youtu.be/5e6zvJqVqlA

gnoop

I wonder why everyone seems so concerned with texel density.   And what's wrong with eyeballing it?  

  If it's shader layers depending on a single UV channel isn't it be more practical to just have one more UV channel?

Alex_J

gnoop said:

I wonder why everyone seems so concerned with texel density.   And what's wrong with eyeballing it?  

I'm really glad you said that. I haven't done much environment art but I've done a little, and honestly I always wondered why people were getting real concerned over this math stuff. Seemed to me like you just tile things until they look right and that's that. Like, you can just adjust sizes of things interactively and quickly, so why bring formula's into a situation where your eyes can do the work? 

I know it's a simplification and certainly there is more to it than that, but I always had a hunch that maybe students who are accustomed to learning formula's first get this idea that they've got to do this before they can just sit down and make art in an intuitive way. 

musashidan

@BIGTIMEMASTER that's all well and good if it's just you sitting in your bedroom practicing your hobby, but very different in a professional studio with dozens of artists and a complex pipeline.

A lot of studios lock down texel density at the beginning of a project and stick strictly to it. With dozens of artists/levels, and hundreds of textures/shaders/assets, 'just eyeballing it' on a per asset basis is ridiculous.

Alex_J

ah, gotcha. I kind of thought it might be different if an art director has number ceilings they have to stay beneath, but how would I know. Well, that's that.