loss of detail when scaling my textures

Game Engine Game Engine Support and Discussion
#1

okay so i have been doing my best to get as much done on my game without asking the community for help, the reason for not asking for help was basically because i wanted to see how far i could get on the tutorials unfortunately i have hit a wall.

so here is my problem i have used blender to build textures like these,

Side Panel.jpg2048×2048 1.34 MB

Flight Deck Color.jpg1332×2048 1.12 MB

now when i do an unwrap of the room i am working on i export that as a .tif, i then open up photo shop and then i open all my textures up create layers and scale them to fit my tif outline.

so you can see my problem is when i scale the image down it starts to get all blurry. so what am i doing wrong?

thank in advance for the help.

#2

I think the Issue here is just the Mipmapping. But to me, the Mipmapping in the BGE looks horrible and often rather gives unwanted Artefacts like in your Case. On one Hand Mipmapping should not be deactivated for most Reasons, on the other Hand it could help, and on third Hand it takes quite an Effort to deactivate Mipmapping at all – SolarLune has achieved that, but the Method needs a horrible Detour.

I guess that you know what Mipmapping is. And you could say it makes Textures in the Distance blurry. The Problem is, BGE doesn’t make a Difference between a Texture being small because it is far away or because it is just scaled down.

My Advise would be that you make your Texture smaller, scale down the Image itself.

#3

thanks C.A. also last night i tried something new with loading my textures, not sure if it was the right way or if it will cause problems when creating the game, but basically i took my texture and loaded it in to blender i then used went to the mapping tab and set the coordinates: to Global, Projection: flat i set the size in the X: to -15.00 and the Y: -9.87 this worked out pretty good for my diamond plate texture. but i cant help but thing that i am going about this all wrong.

i am so close to having a finished level, and with all of the struggling on getting my textures just right just really pains me.

getting better at creating better textures, and am proud of that the tutorials over and blender cookie are a great help, but uv mapping all this to be used in a game is a real pain. frustration is a good thing at times though and forces you to figure things out on your own, but i am afraid that the work around of this particular problem will come back and bite me in the rear.

#4

almost forgot i wanted to tell everyone here another reason why i have not been posting much on my game is because i wanted to have have as much done as i could, my goal is to show the community that i am serious about building this game. we have all seen so many projects fall by the wayside here and for that reason alone i decided i would wait till i had more to show you guys. but if any of you are interested i would be more than happy to post what i have, if not i can wait till i get more done.

#5

Global Texturing is good as long as your textured Surface’s Normal is More or less on the Z-Axis – so it can be useful for Terrains, for Example.
But you will be better off really learning proper UV Texturing. The Learning Curve is steep, but once you’re over it, it’s just a Piece of Cake.
A Thing that might seem annoying at first Glance but that will really help you, especially on more organic Meshes: Mark Seams. This Funtion will set the manually selected Edges as »Seams« on your UV Distribution, like the Borders of a Textile Cutout when designing Clothes in Reallife.

About how you handle the Presentation of the Project, I handle it pretty much the same Way. Sounds, though, as if you’re pretty close to presenting your Game.

#6

not as close as i like to be i have to take time off to do the tutorials constantly, speaking of that do you have a link on how to do proper uv texture mapping? i have tons of blender books here but there have been a lot of changes and tools have been improved so have to relearn a lot of those.

#7

I’m surprised that no one has mentioned the anisotropic filtering for GLSL mode that can be set in the Blender preferences.

If you’re using GLSL, try turning anisotropic filtering on in preferences > system, I personally use the 8x quality which gives a marked increase in texture fidelity.

#8

@ Ace Dragon:
Damn, I had that ringing in my Head somehow, but I couldn’t put the Memory together correctly. Thanks as well! :smiley:

#9

It would also help if you show a screenshot of your problem - it’s kind of hard to get the idea from just text. I would recommend using a power-of-two sized image, as well, rather than an odd size. Blender will alter the texture (for the worse) if you don’t.

#10

i know right i should have done this earlier. the uploader does not seem to like my file so i will try it another way.

Uv lay out.jpg1920×1080 253 KB

i am missing the texture lay out i bleave the file size is to large for the up-loader. but hopefully this gives you an idea, also i think its my textures that are to large i need to find away to scale them down enough to properly UV them to this model here. this is my first level, it is the inside of a hanger bay on a space craft.

and this is my screen shot using the work around.

using uv map.jpg1920×1080 306 KB

#11

wandering, what will the effect be if i have no light source in my scene ? I can see my textures just the way i want them.

#12

uv blend at 256 x 256.jpg1920×1080 241 KB

this is what happens when i reduce the size of my texture to 256 X 256 and bake it down to create a UV map for normal mapping. for some reason or another i am really struggling on trying to finish this right lol.

#13

any more input guys?

#14

Why do you need to use the baking tools at all, just map the raw texture to the faces?

Also, it seems you used a bad-quality re-size algorithm either through Blender or another program, many paint programs have algorithms that will give you much better quality rather compared to the blocky reduction seen here.

#15

Ace Dragon, i really don’t know, i am not really trying to map the image but then again i don’t really know what i am doing with UV textures.

my thought was to unwrap the model like the tutorial i had seen said to, then export it so i could use my paint program to paint my texture on to it, instead of using paint i was used the textures that i made like you would laying layers on to something. i noticed this did not work so i went back in to blender thinking i needed to reduce the size of my image so i started over with the building of the texture. only when i did that you get the last image when i baked the uv to it.

i really wish i could show you guys what i was doing, and if i am having this kind of trouble i cant wait till i start the texture for my players lmao.

seriously though i have never had a problem following tutorials so this is a new one on me. and i could honestly use some help here and i mean the kind that starts with “Mr. Gardner how nice to see you today, how are you doing? pleas lay down on the couch and tell me all about it.” lmao hey that would make a great short for blender usurers lmao

#16

So if the Texture just was too big, why didn’t you simply reduce the Size of the Image in your Painting Tool? That, at least, seems rather reasonable too me.
(Other than that, I have little Clue concerning your Problems – while I consider myself a good Texture Artist, the blender-technical Side is half a Mystery to me…)

That made me laugh.^^

#17

Like Ace said, I think that you’re using a bad resizing algorithm for scaling your image. If you use GIMP, use a different kind of sampling than “None” when you resize your image. I can’t open GIMP right now, so I can’t think of the names, but when you go to resize your image, there’s a drop-down box that allows you to select which kind of resizing you want to do.

Also, you (generally) don’t really need to bake the texture layout to an image and then put your textures there unless you plan on drawing on them (adding details and such). Generally, you could just use Cube Mapping UV Unwrap mode and then place the image(s) in the material.

#18

Thanks guys, this has been helpful everyone it got me thinking in the right direction after ace told me about Algorithm it got me to thinking when i scale i should not scale pixels, also i should tell you guys i am using photo shop, as well as a really old copy of paint shop pro, i am gong to attempt to re-save my texture under a different format then attempt to re-size. hopefully i have this figured out soon lol.

#19

anytime you re-size an image you lose image quality. Photoshop has an option called smart object. Right Click the layer that contains your image and choose “Convert to Smart Object” now you can resize your image anyways you like and the image will never loses quality. If you need to make edits to the image you must rasterize the image first. NEVER re-size the Image with out converting it to “Smart object”

#20

Is it a power of two texture? That’s a big decider