Sharp texture, blurry texture

[Fennet]

I have one texture I'm using throughtout my sim, it's a test texture, mind you; I'm aware that it's neither seamless nor perfect, but I like it. I'd rather not have to use a tileable one on most surfaces; I have my reasons for that. I am a novice builder.

My problem is that my very clear, 512x512 texture, which works well on some objects, becomes blurry a lot of the time when I try to stretch it, or shrink it, to fit other onjects. I'm new to this, and I'm fairly sure it must be something I'm doing wrong. I haven't been able to find a solution through the wiki or other forum threads. 

I've read that it's best to use one size texture rather than multiple sizes of the same texture, to conserve resources, and I've also read that using one texture throughout should be easier on computer memory.

I keep asking my friends how the texture looks on their more powerful systems, and the answers I get are vague. There does seem to be some blurriness apparent to everyone, however, so I don't think it's merely my computer. And clearing the cache did little to help un-blur my textures.

I'm including a couple of pictures to illustrate the problem.

Textured objects range from components less than a meter high to a megaprim surround that's sim sized. (The sim-surround is uniformly fuzzy, and I don't want it to be. It was perfectly clear and focused when I first applied it.). I do hope there is a useable solution for this, because the sim is shaping up nicely, all in all, except for a few not so minor glitches.

I also tend to get a lot of blur when I use the roughness function in the texture editing window. That's not as big a deal because there are easy workarounds for adding roughness, (such as doing it in photoshop instead, before I upload the texture).



 

[arton Rotaru]

It could be that you are a victim of texture trashing, but it looks more like a general texel density problem.

Why not seamless tileable textures? They are pretty much the only solution to this, and are indeed very resource freindly. To achieve a consistent look throughout the scene, it's important to maintain, more or less, the same texel density on the prims. Texel density describes the texture pixels per meter (or foot) on an object.

In this example below, the cube on the very left side is 1x1 meters. And the texture applied is a 256x256. Hence the cube has a texel density of 256 texels per meter. Now we want to maintain that density accross the other cubes. Which are 2x2 meters, 4x4 meters, and on the edge on the right side is a 8x8 meters cube.

To maintain the 256/meter density, the 2x2 cube requires a 512x512 texture obviously. The 4x4 cube a 1024x1024 already. Larger than 4x4 we are out of luck even with a 1024x1024.



To maintain the density on larger surfaces, we need to tile the texture.



A too high texel density can lead to undesired results also. Like a Moiré effect when zooming out. Like with a 1024x1024 on the 1x1 meters cube on the left.



It doesn't have to be 256 texels per meter. The goal is just the consistency across the assets.

[Chic Aeon]

Arton gave you a very good explaination.

 

Just like trying to make a 400 x 400 pixel jpg into a 1200 x 1200 jpg (that is increasing the area without increasing the pixels) you WILL have blur. The amount of blur depends on the quality of your uploaded texture.

 

The answer -- if you can do it -- is  a clear, high resolution (like 300dpi), 1024 x 1024 tiling texture for your whole sim. One texture to load, it will be as clear as it CAN be.  It will still be blurry on your terrain as the tiling for that is built in. The only way to work around that would be to use prims, mesh or sculpts for your ground. And of course the more you TILE the textures, the more "cookie cuttery" it will look with the repeats. So finding a middle ground is often necessary.

 

If you own your own land or have access to the estate tools, you can use various textures in the elevation levels of the sim to blend various textures together for the ground. That might be something you want to look into.

 

Good luck.

[Fennet]

Thanks for your reply, I had pretty much ruled out texture thrashing already. Tileable means I'd lose the sandstone texture that I like, which I might be able to live with. But using a tileable texture on the sim surround, megaprim that it is, would be a bearcat to put it mildly. I may just have to put up with blurryness on that. I'll think about alternatives. Unfortunately, it's a necessity; I'm screening out a 4000 meter high rainbow colored installation (and another tall build on the other side) that really messes up the long view from my desert sim.

I will seriously consider what you wrote, though, when I have time to take it all in a little bit more thoroughly.

Thanks again.

[Aquila Kytori]

Hi

I think it would be worth spending a little time at least trying to make your favourite non tileable sandstone texture seamless.

Here is a link to making seamless texture in Photshop:  http://www.designpanoply.com/blog/how-to-turn-a-photo-into-a-seamless-tileable-texture-in-photoshop

[arton Rotaru]

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Fennet wrote:

Thanks for your reply, I had pretty much ruled out texture thrashing already. Tileable means I'd lose the sandstone texture that I like, which I might be able to live with. But using a tileable texture on the sim surround, megaprim that it is, would be a bearcat to put it mildly. I may just have to put up with blurryness on that. I'll think about alternatives. Unfortunately, it's a necessity; I'm screening out a 4000 meter high rainbow colored installation (and another tall build on the other side) that really messes up the long view from my desert sim.

I will seriously consider what you wrote, though, when I have time to take it all in a little bit more thoroughly.

Thanks again.

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Yeah, the sim surround will still be a bit blurry. This isn't too bad in most cases though. because usually you don't get close to the surface of those. Like Chic said, you want to use a tileable 1024x1024 to keep the repetition as low as possible while maintaining a certain amount of sharpness still.

Aquila is also right, it's probably time to get your hands on the creation process of tileable textures. :matte-motes-little-laugh: There are lots tuts online how to do it.

[Fennet]

I have made tileable textures. I've made this particular texture tileable, in fact. I lose the directional striations I like when I make it tileable, and I wind up with an eye on each tile, not an attractive look, IMO. I could go with a less definitive pattern, but I'm very reluctant to entirely abandon the texture I used for my test.

[arton Rotaru]

Yes, there are always pros and cons, and compromises we have to live with. :matte-motes-smile:

[Fennet]

Thanks for all the help. Right now I'm busy modding scripts, texturing and retexturing comes next.