Are We Now Being Charged for Texturing Objects?

Help! Is anyone else being charged for texturing their objects since v.1.2? I noticed in my account history that for some reason I am being charged $10 for texture uploads that I haven't uploaded...yet the amount charged coincides with objects I have made in-world and dragged textures onto (which (textures) already exist in my inventory)! Please say it isn't so!!!

ewww! That isn't right it seems. This has to be a bug if it is happening. Can any Linden verify?

Example: In making boxes to hold contents I am selling, I take a snapshot of said objects and drag that snapshot to the front of the box to show what is inside. I am charged $10 per drag--if I drag onto both sides of the box = $20 total! EEKS!!! This is worse than taxing for gosh sakes!

Each snapshot costs 10 bucks to upload, might be them you are being charged for?

You're charged $10 for taking a snapshot, because it's no different from a texture upload.

Dang--never realized that. *blushes deeply and walks away* Can you tell I'm pretty new to all this. LOL

Sar, your blonde is showing again!! tehehehe

I knew you'd have to get your 2 cents in, Bug! And last I recall, you were the blonde! LMAO...

awww.. hehe.. Yes. Didn't realize you were taking snapshots while doing it. They have always been $10, but I was pretty broke by the time I learned that little tip. hehe

Anyway, glad to hear this was a false alarm. That would have been messy.

quick note...if it still works...use the "~" to take multiple shots of something it will save to your hard drive then go out edit in an off game editor and then bring back in as 1 upload this can save you Hundreds of Linden Dollars.

Shadow

Wow! Thanks for the tip, Shadow! Ummm...how exactly does that work...remember, I have blonde roots! LMAO!

I thought bulk uploads were still L$10 per file? At least, they always have been for me. How would putting several textures into one file still give you just the one texture you needed for one particular object? Is there something I've been missing all this time?

I think I understand what Shadow is saying, Pendari. I have two different textures (snapshots) that I put on my boxes -- one for the front and one for the back. If i can play with them in an offline editor (i.e. Photoshop) and combine them to be one texture (snapshot), then import it, it will only cost me $10 instead of $20. Unless I am having another blonde moment, and am totally misunderstanding - which wouldn't surprise me! LOL.

Yep. That's what I think he is saying as well Sarilla. My question is, how then do you get just one part of that texture file to show up on one side of the object you are working with? It would seem to me that both textures would show up on the same side (because they are in essence one texture now). So I'm curious what the trick is to get only the one piece of that texture file to show up where I need it without the other part of the texture showing. If that makes sense.

Actually, having both textures on the same side (one above the other), would work for what I am working on...so no problem there, for me. I just wish I knew how to do it...hehehe.

Oh. Well I do that sort of thing all the time Sarilla. Just with signs. So I usually have about 3 or 4 textures that I put all on one image and make that just 1 texture. For that you just need a paint program of some sort. Then save the file as .jpg or .tga (the latter if you need any transparency). Then upload and apply to your object as you would any other texture.

My question was, it seemed to be implied that I could combine several textures into one file, upload that file, then use one part of that texture for one object, and another part of that texture for a completely seperate object. Maybe I am wrong and he just meant the basic merging of textures like what I explained above? But if there is some way to accomplish this second example, I would love to hear it!

If you set the "Repeats per face" to values less than 1, and then adjust the "offset" of the texture, you can get just a section of the texture to appear on the object.

OMG! I never knew that! Thank you so much Jake! Today I love you more than anyone else!

On the flipside, note that some video cards are unable to handle images greater than 512x512 (Moderns are usualy 1024x1024, and some cutting edge ones offer maybe 4096x4096, but that takes their entire video ram).

ALWAYS use power of two for images
1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,
1024,2048,4096

If you don't, the game (video card driver, actually) will force the image you uploaded down to the next power 2, using an ugly filtering scheme. For example, uploading a 500x500 image will cause it to be smushed down to 256x256 and restretched, looking very blurry.


On the other hand,
If you make a gigantanormous 2048x2048 image, the image will be smushed down if their video card cannot handle 2048x2048. So down to 512x512.

In the end, the biggest you *really* should make is 512x512. 1024x1024 is stretching it, really, and generally wastes a lot of bandwidth for the amount of effect it does.

Note, uploading a 2048x2048 image which is 4 512x512 textures in quadrants with the hope of saving your L$ will merely cause the poor little 512x512s to become very blurry if the video card cannot handle the full 2048x2048.

Also, using the llSetTextureAnim() function will allow you a lot finer and smoother control of choosing which frame in a multi-frame texture to show. Sure it allows you to animate textures, but it also allows you to treat a texture as a series of cells and display single cells at will. Very handy.

Glad to hear that the textures caper is settled. Whew..! Would cost me a fortune. Love them textures.. Woot!

You scared the crap out of me with that initial post!