Help with Textures

I am very new to SL and am trying to understand SL's scale. I know you are to up load only 256X256 or 128X 128 textures. Ok, does that mean pixels per inch or cm. What if I have things that are a very high res, do I back it down or make it smaller. Please any help would be appreciated.

Thanks Garnet

I'm also a Trilling. Welcome to the family.


You really don't need to think in terms of pixels per inch in SL. I suggest that you jump in and start playing. A good way to start might be to make your textures tilable. Once you have texture files uploaded you can play with repeats per face and get a feel for what resolution looks good on what you want to build. The file you load and apply will stretch or squash depending on the size of the prim and the number of repeats.

Keep in mind that the smaller the texture file, the faster it will load. There are several balls to juggle: file size, repeats per face, how large the object to be textured and how close you or the viewer is likey to be to the object. You want the smallest texture file possible that will do what you want without looking too jagged.

Have fun
-Sylvia

Thanks Sylvia for the warm welcome. I am sure that I am over thinking all of this, so I will just up load some things and see what happens.
Thanks again
Garnet

pixels per inch (cm etc.) essentially only matters for print media.

If you put a texture on a prim face and double the size of the prim (on each axis) it's occupying four times as many pixels on your screen as before. If you halve the distance between you again it's occupying four times as many pixels as before. The texture hasn't changed at all. The amount of screen real estate it occupies has.

Keeping your textures small - good move, although there are benefits to sheeting too, which tends to increase texture sizes. It's not clear from your post whether you know this or not, but it looks like not. You don't have to upload square textures. The sides should be a power of 2 pixels long (I'm not sure I think you can get away with 1 X 1 now, but certainly very small), 1024 is the largest. But 1024 X 32 works just fine and if my mental maths is right before my first coffee is half the size of a 256 X 256 texture. That would give you a 32 frame square but low rez animation say...

More realistically, a lot of banners and things are 2 X 1 or 4 X 1 aspect ratios, one way or another, 128 X 32 or 32 X 128 is good for that.

just becuase im here

128*32 = 4096 pixels

256*256 = 65536 pixels

1024*32 = 32768 pixels

so your correct, not bad considering i had to use a calculator

The dimensions in each direction should be a power of 2 multiple, between 32 and 1024. I normally set my Photoshop to a 72 DPI resolution, and then do my design work at 1024 x 1024 or 2048 x 2048 pixels in size. Then I scale it down to 512 x 512 before saving it as a .tga file to import into SL.

A 256 x 256 texture is typical for most textures, and sufficient for most objects. If it's a solid color chip that you want to ensure an exact match on, you can go as low as 32 x 32.

Use 512 x 512 for clothing and for other things that require detail. Note that if you apply a lower resolution texture to clothing, SL *will* re-size that to a 512 x 512 texture in the 'baking' process, so you do not gain anything by using lower quality for clothes.

I would reserve 1024 x 1024 for things that will go on a huge surface and still might be looked at close up, like a wall texture for a wall that has a window and other details on it. Most of my detailed walls are 512 high x 1024 wide.

It's best to use a multiple that aproximates the aspect ratio the texture will be used at. For example, a door is usually twice as high as it is wide. So 256 wide x 512 high makes a great door texture. If you plan to use a texture on a prim that will have a very specific aspect ratio, and you want to eliminate as much distortion as you can, design the texture at the desired aspect ratio, then re-size it to the closest 'power of two' size in each direction. For example, a 1024 x 768 screen shot can be resized to 1024 x 512 for import, and if you put it on a prim that is 1.024 Meters x 0.768 meters in size, it will look perfect and undistorted in-world.

How can I upload my own texture to SL for any object? Tnanks.

1) Prepare your texture as a targa (or a jpeg, but don't do that) with powers of 2 pixels on each side. 32 X 1024 say, or 256 X 256. Save it.

2) Open SL. File>upload texture

3) Pick your texture, click upload.

NB. This will cost you L$10. There is a preview option, and if you cancel you don't upload and don't pay, but you must have L$10+ in your account to allow even this. The preview defaults to "image" but the drop down will let you see the image as various UV maps on body parts.

You can also (without preview) bulk upload from a bit lower down in the file menu, and if you want to upload sounds and anims, they're in the same place too.

Thank You very mutch. Also I have one simple question (i cant find answer in SL help). How can I activatate sub-object level on any object?

Sub object level?

I think you mean individually edit prims in a linked set... in which case it's the edit linked parts check box in the bottom left corner of the upper part of the edit pane.

If you mean for applying textures individually... that's select texture which is a bit higher up in the left hand column.

Just to make it absolutely clear, just in case, the numbers we're talking about (128x128, etc.) are referring to total dimensions, not anything per inch, cm, or anything else.

Yes, that is tiny. 128x128 is icon size for modern systems. (Although I don't know anyone who actually uses many icons at max size like that.)

We can get away with it, though, because a whole lot of things in SL are normally seen no larger than an icon would be on your screen. It's only things that you expect people to really zoom in on, or things that are going to be huge when the AV is walking near them, that will need to be larger.

The basic rule of thumb; the more screen area you expect an object to occupy in normal usage, the larger the texture for that object should be. So, if you have something that's small and not important, put a tiny texture on it. (Or, better yet, put a tiny bit of a texture sheet on it.) If you have a wall that needs a lot of detail and will probably fill the entire screen when people are walking around in your build, you can go as high as 1024x1024 for the texture.

But if you do that, see if you can't also use bits of that texture on smaller things around your build. That way, the texture will only have to load once, and most of the build will rez.

As always, we have to balance detail and the processing power needed to see that detail.

Hope this helps!