pardus3d

Thanks for all the replies they have been very informative. I also had a long talk with someone from the Maya users for SL group and we came to pretty much the same conclusions that seem to be the main themes here. In that case, it would take some trickery to get anything outside of a square texture map (like a 1024x512). I had thought of it as one way to keep texture space down to a bare minimum but found that it's generally not done that way. My prior 3D experience has been with high detail still renders or pre-rendered animations. This is my first attempt and creating things for an engine where performance matters so I wanted to do it right and be considerate of everyone's performance.

Thanks for the reply I appreciate it. I had read that first thread you mentioned though I hadn't seen the second. I think they do still leave a little room for question on the balance point between size vs count. I am under the impression that generally size trumps count but I wanted to get some other thoughts on it especailly in the more extreme cases like my third example. I am a web developer and in that arena we have a lot of the same trade offs between page weight vs number of request. Thanks!

Hi all, In order to be most optimal for performance, I'm sure we want to use the least texture space possible for a model, and also the fewest amount of textures possible for the client to download and work with. I am trying to best understand the balance between the two. For some totally arbitrary examples: What would be better for performance, a single 1024x1024 texture or two 512x512 textures? One is twice the texture space and one is twice the files. What about having a single 1024x1024 texture or three 512x512 textures? Then you have 3/4 the texture space but three times the files. What about a single 1024x1024 texture vs three 512x512 textures and one 256x256? The second still uses a bit less texture space but now has 4 files instead of one. My overall point is I'm really trying to get a sense of the balance between texture space and file count for performance. Thanks!

Hi all, In order to be most optimal for performance, I'm sure we want to use the least texture space possible for a model, and also the fewest amount of textures possible for the client to download and work with. I am trying to best understand the balance between the two. For some totally arbitrary examples: What would be better for performance, a single 1024x1024 texture or two 512x512 textures? One is twice the texture space and one is twice the files. What about having a single 1024x1024 texture or three 512x512 textures? Then you have 3/4 the texture space but three times the files. What about a single 1024x1024 texture vs three 512x512 textures and one 256x256? The second still uses a bit less texture space but now has 4 files instead of one. My overall point is I'm really trying to get a sense of the balance between texture space and file count for performance. Thanks!