How to remove pixely textures

[Fanta UwU]

I have a texture I'm trying to fix and everything I'm doing is not working. I try to up the resolution to as high as 5000, sharpen it, resize it, everything

HOW do I make this NOT pixely?! I've been struggling with this and its really starting to stress me out.

https://gyazo.com/1a0f3037236f963c84f945183a35a7f5

Particularly the 'zipper' is what I'm trying to smooth out. And nothings working. I textured it in Blender and tried fixing it in GIMP. I don't have Photoshop nor can I afford it. 

Edited February 23, 2020 by Muiregwen

[OptimoMaximo]

25 minutes ago, Muiregwen said:

I have a texture I'm trying to fix and everything I'm doing is not working. I try to up the resolution to as high as 5000, sharpen it, resize it, everything

HOW do I make this NOT pixely?! I've been struggling with this and its really starting to stress me out.

https://gyazo.com/1a0f3037236f963c84f945183a35a7f5

Particularly the 'zipper' is what I'm trying to smooth out. And nothings working. I textured it in Blender and tried fixing it in GIMP. I don't have Photoshop nor can I afford it. 

When there are just as many pixels in a texture and the detail is small, there is no real mean to get it smooth and not pixelated. 1024 images aren't big enough to get that size of detail as crisp and clear as you'd like and, before someone chimes in with "1024s are big enough", the problem is that this texture goes on pants and the actual texture surface in use is smaller than a full 1024 square texture, due to the inherent nature of pants shapes. For as much as you might be optimizing uv mapping coverage, some empty space is to be expected anyway, on top of the necessary padding around the UV shells.

[Chic Aeon]

54 minutes ago, Muiregwen said:

I have a texture I'm trying to fix and everything I'm doing is not working. I try to up the resolution to as high as 5000, sharpen it, resize it, everything

HOW do I make this NOT pixely?! I've been struggling with this and its really starting to stress me out.

https://gyazo.com/1a0f3037236f963c84f945183a35a7f5

Particularly the 'zipper' is what I'm trying to smooth out. And nothings working. I textured it in Blender and tried fixing it in GIMP. I don't have Photoshop nor can I afford it. 

You could bake your texture at a larger size in Blender --- such as 2048 which is four times larger than a 1024.  When imported that 2048 BECOMES a 1024.  There was a long test thread a year or so ago and many of us found that letting the uploader resize worked better than doing it on our own. It will depend on your graphics software.  It was a surprise to me, but a nice bit of news. 

 

Also many clothing creators use MULTIPLE textures (like four to one blouse) on clothing and get super crisp textures. This makes for slow lowing and heavy clothes but it is done and is pretty much the norm these days.  Hence the difference between yours and what you see. 

 

And many to most clothing designers start out with Marvelous Designer which has built in zippers and buttons (OH SO HEAVY BUTTONS!) and so part of the design process is done in that program.  You can get a free trial of MD on the website if you want to try. For Second Life you still have to rig and such.     

[Fanta UwU]

6 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

You could bake your texture at a larger size in Blender --- such as 2048 which is four times larger than a 1024.  When imported that 2048 BECOMES a 1024.  There was a long test thread a year or so ago and many of us found that letting the uploader resize worked better than doing it on our own. It will depend on your graphics software.  It was a surprise to me, but a nice bit of news. 

 

Also many clothing creators use MULTIPLE textures (like four to one blouse) on clothing and get super crisp textures. This makes for slow lowing and heavy clothes but it is done and is pretty much the norm these days.  Hence the difference between yours and what you see. 

 

And many to most clothing designers start out with Marvelous Designer which has built in zippers and buttons (OH SO HEAVY BUTTONS!) and so part of the design process is done in that program.  You can get a free trial of MD on the website if you want to try. For Second Life you still have to rig and such.     

I do have Marvelous Designer, I got that on sale last year (2019 so technically last year). I'll have to play with the zipper functions and buttons.

I have the mesh rigged nicely in Blender (I had to do a bit of manually weighting it around the crotch area instead of just transferring weights), so rigging isn't a problem.

It's just a matter of texturing it in a way so its not pixely when zooming real close. I tried to find a vectorizing function like Adobe Illustrator (to which I have used before but don't have access to anymore). But it's all either drawing vector art or some 'vectorizing' thing (which is really making it LOOK like vector art but its not actually vectorized).

I'll test out baking it in a bigger size. See how that goes.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

You can also try various smooth or blur functions that programs like Gimp or paint.net offer, they use algorithms such as Gaussian blur to level out the colours across an area to avoid sharp changes over too short/sharp a boundary. You can specify things like radius of action, fall-off in effect, and although it's quite a tedious process, half an hour should get you some altered images that might look better.

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

The texture area for the zipper doesn't have to be on the same scale as the texture area for the rest of the trousers. Have you tried scaling up the zipper face on the UV in Blender? Rotate it if your free area is vertical.

[Tonk Tomcat]

If you plan to add color options, like different zipper colors, you also can move the zipper/metal parts to a seperate texture. Use the complete UV square, and just use a 256x256 texture for those parts. You still will have a lot more texture space to use than on the same square like the complete pants, so you'll see more details. And changing only the small metal parts texture instead of applying several 1024 maps will also use a lot less texture memory.

Edited February 24, 2020 by Tonk Tomcat

[Fanta UwU]

Thank you everyone. I tried baking an AO on a 2048x2048 and it came out SOMEWHAT better. I added an additional layer of clothing texture and a zipper texture and while it is LESS pixely its not completely crisp. It may have worked better if I use multiple textures on each pattern layout, but... I didn't particularly want to redo the rigging and pattern in MD! 

[Janet Voxel]

2 hours ago, Muiregwen said:

Thank you everyone. I tried baking an AO on a 2048x2048 and it came out SOMEWHAT better. I added an additional layer of clothing texture and a zipper texture and while it is LESS pixely its not completely crisp. It may have worked better if I use multiple textures on each pattern layout, but... I didn't particularly want to redo the rigging and pattern in MD! 

Just out of curiosity, are you using normal maps?

[Fanta UwU]

1 hour ago, janetosilio said:

Just out of curiosity, are you using normal maps?

Not entirely sure what that means? Texturing and UV mapping is one of my struggles, it seems. The UV layout is how the pattern is on MD. Not sure if that makes a difference?

[MaxMare]

I assume you are using MD pattern as your UV without editing it, which is probably why your textures look blurry...When you upload your mesh to Blender, open UV editor and re-arrange islands so you have the least amount of empty space possible within the 1024x1024 square..you only need 2-4px for padding (or 6-8 for 2048 textures) which means you can pack islands quite dense...

Most creators spend little to no time on texturing and it shows...I would refrain from using MD or Blender for texturing when it comes to clothing and accessories. Photoshop or Gimp are the tools you want to use,  it will take some time and practice for you to learn how to make realistic looking clothes, trust me a good texture can do so much for the simplest of meshes and make your work stand out in the sea of identical looking plainly textured stuff...

[Janet Voxel]

31 minutes ago, Muiregwen said:

Not entirely sure what that means? Texturing and UV mapping is one of my struggles, it seems. The UV layout is how the pattern is on MD. Not sure if that makes a difference?

A normal map is a type of map that has depth information on a surface. So your mesh will appear higher resolution/detailed than it actually is. You seem familiar with AO maps. What that does for shadows, normals do for depth and detail.

I was going to say, if you bake normal maps, you can bake your diffuse map onto the normal map with a program like substance painter and your textures would look better. You can also bake textures up to 8k in substance painter then resize them in gimp or PS.

 

[Fanta UwU]

@janetosilio Aaah, substance painter I have heard of, but thats.. costly. I already spent on MD while on sale, I don't think I'm able to get it... Are there any free alternatives to do that? Or can I just use Blender, just with a high sampling/render on a 2048x2048?

@MaxMareOh okay! I do use the MD pattern as the UV as it makes it much easier for me. I'll see about rearranging them though! I do have to resize it to fit the UV grid, as it ends up much bigger. But i never thought of using as much space as possible. Thank you!

[Janet Voxel]

14 minutes ago, Muiregwen said:

Or can I just use Blender, just with a high sampling/render on a 2048x2048?

 

Photoshop has a similar feature where you can upload a mesh object and texture it in a 3d space. If you have PS, that’s definitely an option.

You can also bake textures in blender with cycles, the higher the resolution the longer the bake takes. But now we’re getting into nodes. That’s definitely worth exploring too and dipping your toe in.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

@Muiregwen Would you mind showing us your UVmap for this object? Maybe there is something going on there.

[Fanta UwU]

@Kyrah Abattoir 

https://gyazo.com/72b1f07d60b0160306d3aa2c07b79747

This is what I scaled down to for the UV mapping. It probably needed to be scaled up a bit more after learning a few things here!

EDIT: The reason it looks like that was because i turned on auto mirror... by accident. Which I didn't mind so much, made things a bit easier in symmetry.

@janetosilio

Don't have PS so... thats out x'D I'll try baking them at a higher resolution maybe? The sampling (from my understanding, thats where resolution comes in) in cycles was at 25. Does it need to be higher? Or something?

 

Edited February 25, 2020 by Muiregwen

[Kyrah Abattoir]

Yeah this is a classic issue with MD exports.

The UVs need to be seriously reworked if you want to capitalize on the texture area. Any texture your item has has to be downloaded and loaded into the client's videocard in full, even if you only use a fraction of it, so it's important to make sure you pack your islands tightly to get the most out of it.

Here is an example of a maid dress I made a while ago.

 

[Fanta UwU]

2 minutes ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

Yeah this is a classic issue with MD exports.

The UVs need to be seriously reworked if you want to capitalize on the texture area. Any texture your item has has to be downloaded and loaded into the client's videocard in full, even if you only use a fraction of it, so it's important to make sure you pack your islands tightly to get the most out of it.

Here is an example of a maid dress I made a while ago.

 

Yeeah, UV mapping and textures is one thing I really need to learn! Looking at a UV map confuses me when it isn't made in MD, as I'm not sure where is where, what is what, etc, etc. MD UV mapping, I know where exactly things are at. 

Is there a way to select one section to scale on the UV Map? I have a hard time figuring out how to scale individual pieces on the map. Blender 2.8 was pretty easy as they had a mass selection tool, but.. I'm using 2.79.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

You can box select with B, select everything/nothing with A(or is it Q?) and ctrl+L to select everything that is "connected" to what you already selected.

But i suspect part of your problem is simply that, your UV islands are too small and spaced away, which means you're only using a tiny fraction of that texture space.

You will get a much better texture definition in general once you match the UVs to the texture area you have available.

Edited February 25, 2020 by Kyrah Abattoir

[Janet Voxel]

26 minutes ago, Muiregwen said:

 

Don't have PS so... thats out x'D I'll try baking them at a higher resolution maybe? The sampling (from my understanding, thats where resolution comes in) in cycles was at 25. Does it need to be higher? Or something?

25? Isn’t the default 32 and 128? Anyway, your texture is going to come out grainy if you bake it that low. 
 

Once you sort out your UVs you’ll want to bake it. If you don’t, you’re going to get stretching in some areas. It’s all related, so your UVs are coordinates for textures. If you go for a higher resolution, a single bake can take a long time. So you want to preview it in render mode at a lower resolution to make sure it looks right.

[Fanta UwU]

@Kyrah Abattoir

Makes sense! Thank you! Especially for those shortcuts in selecting individual. And it A on the default setting for selecting/deselecting all.

 

@janetosilio

Default on final are around 25; the preset in blender. so I guess even that default needs to be higher then! Did not know there were other 'defaults' amongst creators.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

Blender baking also has a little quirk, in the sense that it doesn't do anti-aliasing no matter what the settings for normal rendering are, so rendering at a higher resolution is a good idea, but i would first solve the UV issue.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

6 hours ago, Muiregwen said:

https://gyazo.com/72b1f07d60b0160306d3aa2c07b79747

This is what I scaled down to for the UV mapping. It probably needed to be scaled up a bit more after learning a few things here!

EDIT: The reason it looks like that was because i turned on auto mirror... by accident. Which I didn't mind so much, made things a bit easier in symmetry.

6 hours ago, Muiregwen said:

Yeeah, UV mapping and textures is one thing I really need to learn! Looking at a UV map confuses me when it isn't made in MD, as I'm not sure where is where, what is what, etc, etc. MD UV mapping, I know where exactly things are at. 

Is there a way to select one section to scale on the UV Map? I have a hard time figuring out how to scale individual pieces on the map. Blender 2.8 was pretty easy as they had a mass selection tool, but.. I'm using 2.79.

 Excuse my terrible imitation, but this is how you could easily improve the resolution on those pants without increasing the resolution of the actual texture, or making it even slightly different from your original layout.

On the last step, what you can do (since the UV islands are almost identical/mirrored) is scale them by -1 to flip them. (You can press S, then X/Y/Z, then type -1 to flip by that axis.) After that, you can move the islands exactly over their other pair (I left them offset for clarity). That way you can have literally double the resolution, since one part of the texture will be shown on two areas of the mesh.

Edited February 26, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Da5id Weatherwax]

It's worth noting that if you are building a model using the mirror modifier and the two sides are going to be textured identically, unwrap and texture it before "applying" the mirror modifier to convert the "mirror" into "real geometry" - that way the UV will be generated - and any maps baked - with the mirrored islands already overlapped as in @Wulfie Reanimator's example since this modifier duplicates the mirrored vertices and changes only their position, all other aspects of their data, such as their UV coords, are preserved.

[OptimoMaximo]

19 hours ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

It's worth noting that if you are building a model using the mirror modifier and the two sides are going to be textured identically, unwrap and texture it before "applying" the mirror modifier to convert the "mirror" into "real geometry" - that way the UV will be generated - and any maps baked - with the mirrored islands already overlapped as in @Wulfie Reanimator's example since this modifier duplicates the mirrored vertices and changes only their position, all other aspects of their data, such as their UV coords, are preserved.

It's also worth noting that texture bake with overlapped UVs may generate artifacts ie a base mirrored object with some asymmetrical additions, but it can happen on perfectly symmetrical objects too. 

Moreover, it increases bake time, as the single UV shells would undergo their own sampling for the bake to happen (the same area would show as baking twice) 

Also, normal maps baked from high to low poly would generate inconsistent tangent space oriented normals, as the mirrored UVs have their normals flipped, possibly resulting in one side looking like normal map inverted. 

Better moving the mirrored UVs to another UV tile to avoid such occurrences

Edited February 27, 2020 by OptimoMaximo