How would you handle this texturing problem?

[Pamela Galli]

So far I have had wood floors inside my houses and brick out on the patios.  It was pretty easy to separate floor textures by room, since I was dealing with planks and only had to match textures going in one direction.

However, now I want to make all floors inside and out with tile. I know I can made one big texture for the whole floor but one 1024 texture for the whole thing would be pretty blurry.

 

Has anyone discovered a way to align the textures on different texture maps?

[Drongle McMahon]

Not sure exactly what you mean, but...

First, if you want the same texture on two adjacent (or not) faces to match, the UV maps must use exactly the same scale (ie Blender units per pixel in the UV map). Secondly, any vertices placed at exactly the same point on the UV map will receive the same texture pixel (so will identically interpolated points between vertices). You can arrange repeats by extending the UV map(s) outside the texture area. The texture is essentiall tiled throughout that area. If you want to use texture repeats and/or offsets inside SL, that can compensate for different scales, but I would not recommend that for mtching because the precision is insufficient unless you plan everything with that in mind.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

Not 100% sure what you are after, but if you want the tiles to match inside and out and the inside and outside surface are next to eachother, I would make it one texturable face, with a planar UV map. You can use the repeat tool inworld for better texture quality then, without having to worry about any edges not matching.

If the surfaces aren't next to eachother it will work just as well btw.

[Pamela Galli]

Thanks for the replies, sorry I was not very clear.  I am not sure I understand your replies, either. :-)

What I want to do is make baked textures for each area but have the tiles aligned.

 

Okay I kind of get the idea of making one big UV map for the whole thing.  And I was thinking maybe use the colored grid somehow.  But fuzzy beyond that.

 

[Pamela Galli]

Or make a giant UV for all the rooms, bake an AO for it, then layer that over a huge texture of the tile in Gimp?  

And somehow split up the UVs and ... something.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

If you are going to bake the textures and a single 1024 will be blurry because of the size, texture repeats or using a single map are probably not an option, unless you really really want to hurt your brain.

I don't see the problem though, just align the textures in you modelling program before baking, use two texturable faces like you did with the tiles and wood and make sure the crack between the tiles is where the two surfaces meet. If there is a small difference in alignment then, it will be absolutely invisible.

[Drongle McMahon]

Here is one (of many possible) approaches. It tries to avoid any maths, because I know you hate that. I haven't tested it yet. Might add pictures if I decide to. Essentially, the idea is to achieve correct tiling by (a) making and scaling the UV maps in one go by using project from view. This assures identical scaling. (b) Separating them and moving only by increments of the tile dimensions to get them in the image area. This should ensure the tile repeats mtach up. It is essential to avoid any other scaling or movements. The optional step 8 could reduce total texture area for the smaller floor parts, but is not quite si simple. When the image size is reduced, the UV map is shrunk proportionately, and that has to be undone.

1. Decide the maximum texture size you will use, say 1024x1024.
2. Decide the size of your tiled texture, say 60x60. (exact power of two would simlify).
3. If your floors are in separate objects, separate them and then join them into one mesh.
4. Go into top view (NumPad 7), and UV map using project from view.
5. Use G and S(without X or Y!) to make the UV map of the largest floor as big as possible but fitting inside the image area.
6. Reverse the joining and separation oif necessary.
7. One by one, assign a material to each floor, select it, and move its UV map only by units of the tile width (multiples of 60 in our case; GX60, GY-120 etc etc...) until it fits within the image area.
8. (optional, complicated?) Where the smaller fllors can fit in smaller allowable map sizes (powers of two), change the image size appropriately, and restore the map shape by multiplying the relevant doimensions by powers of two. Ue only tile-size movements to adjust positions if necessary
9. Bake the ao for each wall using you usual methods.
10. Make the tiled textue big enough to fit the largest UV map.
11. Multiply the identical tiled texture by the ao texture for each floor in your favourite image manipulating program.
12. Done. Test in Blender before uploading!

Steps 3-6 ensure identical scaling.
Step 7 (and 8 if done) ensures the tiling remains in phase.

[Pamela Galli]

Thank you both very much, appreciate your time - I am going to give these a try, will report back how things turned out :-)

[Maeve Balfour]

A possible method is this: Use a repeating tile texture for the floorboards etc as normal, to get the desired sharpness. ABOVE this place an entirely separate mesh plane (about 1cm above the original floor) - this mesh plane will need its own dedicated material (I would suggest this plane being an entirely separate mesh to the room/floor mesh, to create differing centre points (explained below)). Place the AO bake on this plane, with alpha masking applied to the AO texture. This effect will give you sharp floorboards etc with AO shadowing.

CAVEAT: Flickering and alpha sorting issues. I never used to use this method with old fashioned prims, purely due to the flickering you get with cam movements. However, POSSIBLY due to the differing centre-points of meshes (the floor plane mesh would most likely have a different centre point compared to the room's centre point), this flickering doesn't seem to be a problem in my own usage thus far. (I haven't explored this method to a large degree as yet, so your mileage may vary). I have done this with my overlay AO meshes placed about 1cm above the floor / for verticals, 1cm offset from walls etc, and have been able to cam around without issues. The critical issue is that the centre points for the relevant meshes MUST be significantly different, or the alpha flickering issue will occur.

CAVEAT: Alpha vs alpha sorting: Same old timeless issue. If you want to use shadow planes for furniture IN ADDITION to the floor plane AO, the alpha fighting will be a potential issue. The degree of this will probably depend on the amount of transparency where they conflict, and whether or not the flickering will be noticeable. An example would be if you had the majority of the floor AO visible around the wall edges, and the furniture was placed well away from the visible floor AO areas - I would assume any alpha sorting issues probably wouldn't be visible, since in theory the floor's AO would be fully transparent where the furniture would be sitting. Again, mileage will vary dependent on the visibility of the clashing alpha planes sections.

In general usage, I tend to be careful where I use alpha overlays, especially for walls. Mostly due to conflicts with AV hair alphas. Usually I have them placed in areas where, with general cam usage, it is less likely for AV's heads to be between the cam and the said alpha planes on the walls. A minor issue to some, but it can be annoying, so I always keep this in mind. Also, if you cam into a room using this alpha method, you generally get a split-second delay for the alpha textures to become visible (they "flick" into view - I assume this is the viewer sorting out their visibility or something - although this could be viewer specific).

So despite the caveats, a mesh plane overlay with a baked AO is a possible method to explore as well. :matte-motes-smile:

[Drongle McMahon]

Here's an illustration. In this case using 256x256 textrures (UV map default) and a 15x15 pixel tile size. (Left out the ao baking part).

1. Two objects (just the floors here).

2. Joined them, wireframe view showing the separate areas each to have its own texture.

3. UV map project from view.

4. Scale and move to fit largest piece to image area.

5. Reseparated objects and applied materials to the separate areas of each.

6. Select one of the areas...

7. And move into image area using GX135 and GY-240 - 135 and 240 are multiples of 15, the tile size.

8.After moving all the areas for one object.

9. Applying the 256x256 texture with 15x15 tiles.....they align perfectly ( and will stay like that after the aos are added).

Note that Maeve's method allows much more efficient texture use, as the ao overlay can be low resolution.

[Pamela Galli]

Thank you all for your time spent on this -- I appreciate it very much! (Esp Maeve, who came out of retirement :-)).

First I tried  Kwakkelde's method, since it seemed simplest. First I discovered that after baking one piece of floor I could not get Blender to show the texture on the other piece. It remained black no matter what I did.  But also I discovered that the floor tile, which was originally a 1024 texture with 4 tiles on it, looked very pixelated when the repeats were 3 and 3 in Blender, when I zoomed in on it -- tho I have not applied it in sl yet to see how bad it really is.

 

So it looks like Maeve may have the solution -- except that I did something similar with regular prims in some of my houses (I hollowed out the center so furniture shadows would not be affected) but the problem is that some ppl do see a flickr even when I do not, and they just go into a panic over it -- although I do include info in the instruction notecard explaining that the shadow prims are all linked to each other but not to the house and can be delted or made lighter or whatever.

So Drongle I am going to study your very helpful diagrams and try that -- if in fact I can get the texture not to be so pixelated. 

Again -- very much appreciated!

 

[Pamela Galli]

Okay here is a pic of my problem with the blurriness -- on the porch, at the bottom of the pic, the blurriness is at an acceptable level -- but the same material on the study floor at teh top of the pic, is much blurrier.  I am at a complete loss to explain how the exact same material with the same repeats can look different on different meshes:

 

 

ETA I tried a different less busy texture with the same results.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

First I discovered that after baking one piece of floor I could not get Blender to show the texture on the other piece. It remained black no matter what I did.  But also I discovered that the floor tile, which was originally a 1024 texture with 4 tiles on it, looked very pixelated when the repeats were 3 and 3 in Blender, when I zoomed in on it -- tho I have not applied it in sl yet to see how bad it really is.

---

Sounds like a Blender issue or something you are missing to me, not something wrong with the procedure.

The two pieces of the floor should be two different materials and therefor shouldn't affect eachother in any way.

Maeves suggestion sounds like a good option though, it worked before mesh aswell. You can get high resolution tiles on a single surface since you can use repeat in SL and there won't be any issues with matching seams, plus you or your customer can alter the floor at any time, even with the baked shadows.

[Drongle McMahon]

Is this picture in Blender or in SL? If it's in SL, is it the same texture applied to both floors, or different textures with different ao baked? If the latter, what were the dimensions of the uploaded images in pixels?

[Pamela Galli]

Thanks for replies --

 

Drongle, sorry I should have said -- this is in Blender. I am still trying different textures but am thinking I may have to use this marble texture that does not look like tiles, because the ones that look like tiles all seem to have the problem. I suspect it is due to something (one of many things) I am not understanding about how texturing works.

 

These are 1024 texures.

 

Here is the marble texture on the same two mesh floors -- I don't see the difference in blurriness:

 

 

 

[Pamela Galli]

And here is the marble texture which I made into a version that looks like tiles -- the blurriness reappears. Evidently I just can't use a texture that looks like tiles.  I have to use a plain seamless texture that will make the floors look like they were made of out single blocks of marble. 

 

[Drongle McMahon]

Ah. So it'a something to dowith the Blender rendering. I'm afraid I don't know anything useful about that. But, does the problem stay there in the baked textures? Or is it just in the display?

[Pamela Galli]

The blurry texture look very pixelated when I zoom in, much more so than the other. I have thought of a plan; if it works I will report back.