Unsatisfying baked texture resolution

[Drongle McMahon]

"...to allow you do add a seamless texture that can be changed..."

I shouldn't pre-empt, but...

True, but the main advantage is that it allows you to use a low resolution AO with a small tiled texture, because the blurring of the AO dioesn't matter. So for a wall with a repetitive wallpaper, you might have to use a 1024x1024 for a single combined baked texture, but a 256x256 AO with a tiled 256x256 underneath. That's 1/8th the total texture size. Drop them down to 128x128 and it's 1/32. You can also increase the repeats of the tiled texture to get higher detail than with the 1024x1024 without changing the AO. Furthermore, the tiled texture can be re-used for other walls with only the AO overlay changing. For simple walls, the overlay is only 2 triangles. So the extra geometry will often be a small proportion of the total.

[Pamela Galli]

Yes and yes.

 

For some reason the mesh does not flicker like regular prims. I usually just make another copy of the floor, but sometimes if I need the shadow prim to have sides as well, I have to adjust the shape before upload.