Uploading rectangular textures?

Hi,

I'm uploading some targa files that are rectangular, not square. But when I get them into SL, they are forced to be 512x512 squares, and therefore when you double-click on the texture, it looks squished when it opens.

Anyone have a solution for this? I'm entering the images in a contest, and I certainly don't want them to be distorted!

Thanks,

Remember that SL only allows imported textures to be a multiple of 2
(16, 32, etc. up to 1024)

So, you may have loaded a texture that does not have a dimension that's a multiple of 2
(I've uploaded textures with dimension of 32 x 256, so I know SL will allow oddly shaped textures)

Try placing your texture on your rectangular prim, and see if that makes it look normal again (sometimes the compression does not distort the texture enough to cause any noticeable loss)

If the texture is meant for a prim... You can shape the prim in the same rectangle as the original picture. If you really want pictures that are rectangles, you'll have to go with something like 256x512 or 512x1024. (^_^)

If you want to keep pictures just to show people without putting them on a prim.. Crop your original picture into a square shape before uploading it. [^_^]

As far as I know... Those are the limits. And I think sizes up to 2048 are allowed. (^_^)y

I put the image size into the filename (e.g. my_pic_400x300) when I upload it.

Then in SL I make a prim with those proportions (e.g. 0.4m x 0.3m) and put the image onto it. The proportions should then be correct.

If you're entering a contest and it *has* to be a Texture (not prim) I'm outta ideas (at this time of night!)...

There are two or three ways to offset SL's resizing on upload of textures.
!. Size your textures to powers of 2...........256 x 512, or 1024 x 512, 512 x 128, etc before you upload them.
2. Don't size your textures but instead "fill" with some neutral (or even transparent) background to a square such as 512 x 512 or 1024 x 1024 etc.
3. Don't worry about SL's resizing at all but once uploaded put on a flattened cube prim and size the cube to the proper aspect ratio making sure "stretch texture' is checked in the edit window.

Hope that helped.

This is best reserved for the Texturing Tips forum. We DO have content creation forums for this purpose. There are some experts there that pretty much never darken RA, and they may have insight that we don't.

Really? Wasn't that discontinued a while ago?
Would certainly make life easier for artists if it is allowed...I'll try it when next able to get in-world.

I'm with you Joseph. I think they did change that to a maximum of 1024 x 1024. Not sure when they did that but I've not been able to upload anything above 1024 at all in a long time.

Cristalle,
I considered putting it in the Texturing Tips forum, but the forum description didn't really seem to apply to my question: "Discuss techniques, ask questions about using Second Life clothing templates and texturing tools." It sounded to me more like how to use textures inworld on clothing etc. That isn't what I'm doing. But I will post it there too, if you think someone might be able to help.

Thanks,

I think that description is a little narrow, but thanks for posting it there. I hate to keep trying to direct people to post content creation questions in the content creation forums, but let's face it - people like Robin Sojourner rarely, if ever, post in RA. We are lucky to have Chosen Few, Chip Midnight, and Namssor Daguerre show up from time to time in here. And Robin is one of our best sources for learning. Why not ask there? It is something that we should definitely take advantage of and not skip by because we have some folks who are well-versed on the subject here.

For example, if Chosen were to respond to this thread, he'd probably also mention something about video memory so that the texture load would be more efficient, that 1024x1024 is not necessarily the best resolution because of the lag, etc. Or maybe tell you the texture trick to put 16 different patterns into one texture and then scale/offset it to the size of the prim... stuff like that. Except far more eloquently than I could ever put it.