Texel Density, what are your rules?

bitinn

So I have been facing this problem lately:



Given a fixed Texel Density, a modular piece doesn't quite fit on the texture.

I know a few solutions at this point:

1. Stack some uv islands. (drawback: baking maps from high will be annoying)

2. Use a larger texture, then pack more than one object into it. (drawback: we have texture variants, sharing texture between objects will be annoying)

3. Relax texel density rule on *some* of the uv islands, keep major uv islands (drawback: will limit what kind of texture we can use on these islands, gradient usually ok, patterned texture likely no.)

4. Resize all uv islands until them fit (drawback: figuring out how much is annoying, defeats the whole purpose of texel density: knowing your objects will show up similarly along with other objects)

Which approach do you use?

poopipe

1: is the ideal answer - also don't forget tiling strips
2: should be happening already
3: legitimate but please see 1
4: see 1

i'll offer up an additional couple
6: Use materials that allow you to increase perceived texel density without using massive textures,


For the example given the only correct answer is 1 

bitinn

poopipe said:

1: is the ideal answer - also don't forget tiling strips
2: should be happening already
3: legitimate but please see 1
4: see 1

i'll offer up an additional couple
6: Use materials that allow you to increase perceived texel density without using massive textures,


For the example given the only correct answer is 1 

Where is 5?

For 1, How do you solve the baking issue though (like AO/Normal)? Just leave it be? Mask it out somehow?

I use Marmoset Toolbag / Substance Painter, haven't find a good workflow that can deal with stacked uvs.

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By the way my low/high model look something like these (not exactly symmetrical, so can't use mirroring; and I would prefer not going that extreme neither...)

poopipe

5 is a secret

In the case of this asset, it's fundamentally a box so I'd just planar map  each 'face' the and deal with the little distortion as the logs bend inwards.  It'll lod a shit load better that way as well. 

how big is the panel and what's your desired texel density? 

bitinn

poopipe said:

5 is a secret

In the case of this asset, it's fundamentally a box so I'd just planar map  each 'face' the and deal with the little distortion as the logs bend inwards.  It'll lod a shit load better that way as well. 

how big is the panel and what's your desired texel density? 

it should be 1.2 x 1.2 x 0.3 (meter), I was trying to fit 256 ppm on a 512 texture.

gnoop

   Nobody would ever notice such a neglectable  texel density inconsistency if you just pack  all this inside. 

  For most of an environment staff not enough of texture resolution and too much of a repeating/tiling  is much more serious issue rather than texel inconsistency and wasting UV space is just insane.

   The whole issue of texel density have became  an odd and weird dogma  suddenly  during recent decade while before nobody cared.     You should care about it only in certain circumstances like layered  shaders  using UV multiplication  from same UV unwrap  and even in such case there are workarounds.

Moreover the texel density is a tool itself and varying it cleverly   could help you  in some cases.

bitinn

gnoop said:

   Nobody would ever notice such a neglectable  texel density inconsistency if you just pack  it all this inside.    For most of an environment staff not enough of texture resolution and too much of a repeating/tiling  is much more serious issue rather than texel inconsistency and wasting UV space is just insane.

   The whole issue of texel density have became  an odd and weird dogma  suddenly  during recent decade while before nobody cared.     You should care about it only in certain circumstances like layered  shaders  using UV multiplication  from same UV unwrap  and even in such case there are workarounds

I find sticking to a good texel density make checking objects easier? (you know resolution-wise the textures should look roughly the same, so don't have to put them in scene everytime.)

gnoop

Stacking is ok  but you have to keep in mind that every object would have same repeating texture. If it has some distinguishable features like what procedural textures often doing and what's hard to control in Substance Designers/Painter   it would be repeating like crazy.

I recall 15 years ago we had a rule where texel density depended on a how close/ high  the thing  to most probable  player position on a scene. Like first floor and ground having more texel density than second floor  of buildings exterior.  Plain evenly painted surface have slightly bigger texels  than  one having distinguishable surface details and so on.        The rule still works perfectly ok.

ZacD

Where is 5?

For 1, How do you solve the baking issue though (like AO/Normal)? Just leave it be? Mask it out somehow?

I use Marmoset Toolbag / Substance Painter, haven't find a good workflow that can deal with stacked uvs.

====

By the way my low/high model look something like these (not exactly symmetrical, so can't use mirroring; and I would prefer not going that extreme neither...)

So for this wall in particular, what I'd do is model and bake ~5 different boards. Mirror, flip, rotate a few of them to add variation. I'd also have 3 of them pretty generic looking, with 2 having a bit more unique detail to it, like a crack or knot in the wood. Then have 4 or so variations of the wall with different arrangements of the planks that you use to fill up the level. You could up or lower the variations depending on how often the asset is being used. 

You could also add some texture variation via the material as well in the game engine. Add some directionality to the detail or overlay textures based on world space. 

poopipe

I'd make a bunch of extra related assets to fill the extra space on a 512x1024 map I think. 
Pick some small incidental parts that would be used alongside this one.  Individual logs, connecting bits etc.. 

If you were pushed for memory you could scale them down but wood is difficult to pull off at 256p/m so I'd try to avoid it