Making sense of things....

[Chic Aeon]

15 minutes ago, Aquila Kytori said:

Your texture map seems to have some parts that are identical to others? if so you  could perhaps gain some textures space by enabling snapping in the UV editor and stack those parts one above the other.

I just wanted to mention (left of Aquila's graphic but scroll up) that while this often works very well in Blender Render, it can (or sometimes doesn't) work as well with Cycles because of the variance in lighting and shading -- AND if you are working with a pattern of course (either engine) you get that cookie cutter look which is less than optimum sometimes.  The pattern part doesn't come into play here and I am guessing it would work well with the project at hand. 

I remember getting into the discussion from hell in Opensim with a guy who insisted that every board on my bookcase SHOULD (get that "should" here?) be the same board so that I could use a 256 texture.  FOR ME (and there's that for me) it was completely unrealistic and I cringed.  But with solid colors (or solid metals like smooth knobs) the one texture area for all the same thing works  well and certainly saves space, using smaller textures and less download for the viewer. 

As always, in my book, testing will give you the answer. 

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, Aquila Kytori said:

I'm guessing that the vast majority of creators in what ever field, scripting, animating, texturing, 3D modelling (prims or mesh) etc have had no formal training in those subjects. They do it because its fun, and some will even hope to make a enough L$'s to pay there way.

But this is Anna, Aquila. Technically she may be a hobbyist but she's still far more advanced than most of the people who regard themselves and are regarded as pros. She doesn't strike me as somebody who is particularly keen on doing things the quick and easy way either.

Edited February 17, 2018 by ChinRey

[Anna Nova]

15 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

But this is Anna, Aquila. Technically she may be a hobbyist but she's still far more advanced than most of the people who reghard themselves and are regarded as pros. She doesn't strike me as somebody who is aprticularly keen on doing things the quick and easy way either.

and that is only because you good people here have helped me.  The contributors to this thread read as my personal list of the Great and the Good.  To whatever extent there is such a thing as a mesh-making apprenticeship outside of paid work and the universities, this is it.

[Anna Nova]

1 hour ago, Aquila Kytori said:

...snip....

Anyways....

Just mentioning this just  because:

Your texture map seems to have some parts that are identical to others? if so you  could perhaps gain some textures space by enabling snapping in the UV editor and stack those parts one above the other.

I

 

I am one of those few that usually enjoy editing UV maps but that looks awesome so have downloaded it already and will search youtube to found out how it is used.

(Unfortunately the gifs on that page are way too fast for me to make sence of)

 

I had been thinking about doing that, it's been effective in the past.

One thing that stops me is not knowing how to keep the High and Medium LOD versions in UV-Map sync.  The only way I have found of giving the reduced poly version the same- but simplified UV-Map is to do the deletions from the Mapped High LOD version.  If that makes sense.

[Anna Nova]

4 hours ago, OptimoMaximo said:

You're making an assumption on your own. If you thought that the whole surface area should be covered by the same amount of square centimeters/1024 textures, you're missing the point by not including the re-scale factor introduced by the use of a monitor. 

My advice is to build in modules, where smaller surface areas (like the window frame) get their own, smaller texture, so that the main surface, the wall, can get more area on a bigger texture alone (and the window becomes a prefab you can reuse somewhere else in the same design).

Indeed it doesn't. There are sizes other than 1024, you can make some parts' UVs to catch at least the same number of pixels they had in a combined 1024 map in one or two 512 as separate materials, for example, gaining resolution at reasonable price. Not only you can achieve a smaller object using multiple smaller textures, for higher pixel density and saving on texture memory(**), but you can have series of assets that keep a design consistency, instead of a varied array of looks. Plus you get a prefab template to reuse across different items in the same project, same texture, upload once and duplicate inworld: save in upload fees and on texture load.

** saving on texture memory is meant in comparison to just splitting into more, same sized textures

Which is a choice, that allows you to step onto different routes. My comment was meant to point out that any surrounding item should then account for this and use the same or similar pixel density on their textures. You can use colored meshes and make beautiful cartoon stuff with very small textures and a bit of shading, what's important is that all blends together. Too much of resolution difference between objects isn't good to see.

I'm taking all this on board, and thank you for it.

My old workflow was 1) Make mesh with up to 8 material slots as place-markers for textures, 2) Upload, 3) Texture the 8 SL faces with seamless textures.  This is why the photo at the head of the tread looks like a Lego model.

I had never baked a texture onto a mesh before last week, so you will understand that lots of the things you see as obvious are like blinding lights to me now.  I realised that you could bake different materials to different textures of different sizes, but the full implications of that are just beginning to dawn.

[Chic Aeon]

It's quitting time for me but I wanted to paste in a screenshot JUST IN CASE it might be helpful. It goes along with dividing up your baking  onto more than one texture plane and baking at the same time.

And by the way I think you deserve BIG congratulations for getting your multi material bake to happen. It took me a VERY LONG TIME before I figured that out :D. 

This is my first rough bake of a new building. It is very plain looking at the moment but will spiffy up along the way. Right now I am looking for the feel of the build, working on textures and such. There will likely be many (or at least some) changes in the nodes before I am done.

The important thing (and you may already know this but perhaps others do not) is that you can bake layers of UVs all in one UVmap simply by designating the texture those pieces (usually for me one or two materials per plane but it totally depends on the build) will BAKE to.  Here you can see ONE of THREE textures that are getting ready to bake.  It is designated by the node on the far left. 

There are four materials and three textures I am baking to in this case. They all have one (the same) UV Map.

And here is what I ended up with from my first test bake (20 samples).

This is the ceiling and roof area and it looks good (the roof is supposed to be darker :D)

These are the interior walls. A bit darker than I would like but pretty even in lighting so all good there.

And this is the outside (no importance to those selected bits) which DOES have some lighting issues. Way too dark on two of the side and would look very odd inworld unless I was only going to use it in a particular place that called for that somewhat odd lighting.

So adding more lights and baking at 500 I get this:

And that is looking pretty good. I have a few spots that seem too light but I will look at those when I get the texture on the beta grid. I have already uploaded the model, checked the physic and walked through. 

NOW --- I may decided to use two textures for the interior walls as there are a lot of walls there. BIG building which is difficult to tell. 

IF I decide to do that, I will need to:

rearrange (natch) and add a new material category (the exact same material but with another name) so that I can bake to two different textures (let's says "walls" and "walls2"). 

Logic pretty much dictates that.  But here is the part that took ME forever to figure out ---

You ALSO -- after you have finished your rearranging -- need to select your build so that it is highlighted and make a NEW UV map (see photo above and the red parts) so that Blender "understands" that you have made changes. It will still just be one UV map and the name doesn't matter. Here you see the default that comes up when you just hit that plus key to add a new map. I typically delete the old map and most often add another default UV map which is once again called UVMap  as I like to keep the names the same. That isn't important though -- this works just fine as shown.

Anyway, hopefully that will help someone as that part was definitely a stumbling block for me. It really is easy to redo and rebake: you just need to know the rules :D. 

 

5:01  -- caftan and wine are calling. Hope all continues to work well for you!

 

 

Edited February 18, 2018 by Chic Aeon

[Chic Aeon]

I wanted to add a thought to this thread as textures have been on my mine lately. I recently started a thread showing this over intense textured object (no object shown but it is about a meter and thin so not big). 

And I compared it to my 40 by 23 small building (actually the medium building which is larger is the same texture). 

Now I will certainly admit that the texture is blurred.   But the impression and the feel is there and that was what I was after in this case. While tubbing this morning I realized WHY I had made it blurry like that (sometimes I just work and the reasons become clear later --- not a new thing; same in real life art).  The texture on the outside of the building in part is the SAME texture as the terrain. The point is to blend the texture of the terrain "onto and into" the buildings. So obviously (well not so obviously as I just recognized it) the building needs to be "blurry" in order to match the sand. 

I can't say that I understand completely what Optimo is trying to tell me and us but that isn't new news. I do agree certainly that a set of things should go together (hence the grid) so far as clarity of texture. So all the woods say should match visually. I am not so sure that I agree that the pot say should be the same pixel ratio as say the desk, chair and bookcase however. Most of us live with a wide range of items from different builders. SL is eclectic by nature and we are NOT buildings SCENES here, but objects that go into "scenes" == at least that is what most of us are doing. 

IF I were building a stand alone scene (possibly something for Sansar -- again haven't been) then I would definitely concur. AND of course the lighting and shadows would be consistent and could be more dramatic as they would be fixed and not affected by Windlight (R). 

Anyway, that's my thought of the morn.

Edited February 22, 2018 by Chic Aeon
misspellings galore

[Anna Nova]

OK.  I'm getting there with this, but I have a question, but first an explanation:

1. make a high poly version of the mesh panel and UV unwrap it. This is exported as the High.
2. assign materials to the err, materials.  Plaster, Wood, Painted, Metal, Glass, etc..  And use the nodes to get the effect I want for each.
3. make a baking rig of a panel lamp and a reflective backing,  so that the effect is flat.  I am not deliberately baking shadows yet, just albedo, texture and colour.
4. bake a 1024sq texture for the High Poly mesh.  This is saved as the texture for the High mesh.
5. take a copy of the high poly and drastically reduce the vertex count, preserving a triangle of every material.  I do NOT UV-map this, relying on the map made from the high poly - thus the texture baked from the High poly will map to this mesh.  This is exported mesh as the Medium (Low and a Lowest use it too).

This works well, but it is very restrictive, in that I can't edit the high poly or re-map it easily, because the medium poly is effectively using the same, but denuded, UV-map - which would now be out of sync.

I can see that I could bake the high poly onto the medium poly (several tutorials about that), and in fact is this the best way to do this anyway?  Does the different UV-map of the medium find it's way to the uploader via the .DaE?  (Thinks:  I need to understand .DaE files better)

I'm prepared for the 'daft amateur' answer.

P.S.  I am an amateur, but that doesn't stop me aspiring to do the best I can.

 

[arton Rotaru]

1 hour ago, anna2358 said:

This works well, but it is very restrictive, in that I can't edit the high poly or re-map it easily, because the medium poly is effectively using the same, but denuded, UV-map - which would now be out of sync.

That's how it is. If you change the UV mapping of the High LOD model, you will have to change the UVs on the Medium LOD as well.
Baking that High LOD texture to different UVs on the medium would require an additional material just for that. Highly inefficient!

The lower LODs are done when the High LOD is finished. Or you risk to redo the LODs over and over again.

Note, I avoided calling it high poly, because that usually refers to SubD models which are used to be baked down to a low poly model. That low poly will be the high LOD model in-game.

[Anna Nova]

3 minutes ago, arton Rotaru said:

That's how it is. If you change the UV mapping of the High LOD model, you will have to change the UVs on the Medium LOD as well.
Baking that High LOD texture to different UVs on the medium would require an additional material just for that. Highly inefficient!

The lower LODs are done when the High LOD is finished. Or you risk to redo the LODs over and over again.

Note, I avoided calling it high poly, because that usually refers to SubD models which are used to be baked down to a low poly model. That low poly will be the high LOD model in-game.

Thanks.  I wasn't going mad then!

On the nomenclature, I'll use yours from now on.  I am considering using a sub-surface high poly model as the source of textures in the future, so I'll need to distinguish in my mind the High Poly from the High LOD.

Really helpful, this.

[arton Rotaru]

1 hour ago, anna2358 said:

Thanks.  I wasn't going mad then

I find myself redoing the UVs, and texturing on the high LOD every now and then, when I find out that my carefully hand packed UVs doesn't work that well when doing the lower LODs. Planing the UVs with LODs in mind helps indeed. That's something you get better at with practice, like with everything else.