UV Mapping Options.

Game Engine Game Engine Support and Discussion
#1

Hello, I have been working on a “Magic” style card game that is finally reaching a “Playable” state. My question(s) is 4 fold.

  1. I have on the order of 1200 cards total. Should these be gathered into 1 large image file?
    (I had this previously recommended, but am checking opinions on this.)

  2. Assuming the above is “yes.” Should all 1200 card objects share the same material and texture.

  3. Since an image file of suitable resolution for all 1200 cards is 24.4mb for .jpeg or 87.8mb for .png is there a preference?

  4. Any suggestions regarding initial load times, which on my rather powerful computer is around 3 secs, just for the cards (10 on my laptop), would be appreciated.

#2

Are they normal playing cards?
If that is the case you can have two layers to each card, one for the number (or face) and one for the symbol (eg hearts, clubs), so that you have a way smaller image.
You’d then have the numbers white, and use vertex colours co make them black and red.

But if each card is vastly different, then I have no other ideas.

#3

Unfortunately no, all the cards are rather detailed images (hence the large image file).The vast majority share the same back which is only a single image in the stack and not repeated. The cards all have their back “Face” mapped to this, while their front “Face” is mapped to the corresponding sub-image.

#4

Are all cards used at the same time?
Could you divide them into ‘packs’ and use libLoad to load only the ‘packs’ that are needed at one particular time?