Fight with texturing... and loose my head!!!

Hello everyone!

First, sorry for my bad english, but it's not my mother language...

I need some help with textures. I search to found an answer on the other posts, but did'nt found solution or same problem... but maybe I'm a blind eye... Let me explain: I made my textures with Photoshop CS2 and upload it as Targa file. Normally, it's work great except for some of them that I had to ajust cause the result seem to be different from what I see in Photoshop. I know that SL compress it to a Jpeg2000, but is it normal that when I upload my texture an place it on an prism (object not clothing) everything is correct, but after closing SL and restart it the same texture file as change??? And not only on the object, but in my textures directory too! So I upload my texture again, put in on the object again and everything look great, so I restart SL and the same problem happened!!! My texture is like a black glittering surface and I loose all the withe glittering effectb after the restart of SL...

How it can be possible to upload a texture, see it well in my inventory texture an on an object, but after restarting SL it change on the object and the file itself on my inventory??? It's like closing SL change the file texture. (I try 16-24-32bit targa, Jpeg, Bitmap and the problem is always the same... Can somebody help me with that issue??

Thank you in advance!

My guess is that it isn't getting there in the first place. Have you tried other textures? Try a plain texture with a word on it and see what happens.

Hi! And thank you for trying to help me, Thunderclap. I tried it with a plain red texture with withe letters on it. The result is the same, but not so blatant then with my black glittering texture. It's OK after the upload, Ok on the object... but after restarting SL, It does the same, it's like SL is bluring the texture file in my inventory. With a plain texture is not a big problem, but with a pixelate one, the result is awfull! The withe glitter seem to completely vanish (blur). Any advice?

Thanks again!

What resolution are you uploading your textures at ?

I tried 24bit/pixel and 32bit/pixel as a Targa file

Are you waiting very long for the texture to load in SL? Sometimes it takes an incredible long time before it fully loads, until then it will be blurry and may go thru 2 or 3 sharpenning steps before its completely loaded.

It's depend on how long your Very Long is... let's say 10 minutes...??

But the texture in my Texture Inventory is blurry too... It's became blurry after closing SL and restart it. But the first time I see it and use it, everything was ok...

something to keep in mind, if your image is physically large (lets say 1024x1024x32) and you have low amounts of video ram (lets say the mimimum of 64mb) and your standing in a "biult up" area with lots of biuldings and objects ect your computer will blur out images depending on mouse focus, its either degrade quality or plain ol crash ...

also have you tried clearing your cashe? maby theres a funky copy stuck in there

Thanks all! I cleared the cache and delete all the textures that I had used on that prism before. I upload them again (256X256), put on the prism (little one) and everything was perfect... since I close SL and open it again. The texture on the prism has change, and I wait more then 10 minutes, but more strange, the texture inside my inventory has change too. Like the fist time. Do I really have to shut down and restart SL each time I want to be sure that the texture will not change? Very anoying.

256x256 is a good size that should cause no problem. Have you tried rezzing your prim in a very quiet area, with low lag ? (One of the quieter sandboxes, for example).

Also, what graphic card are you using ?

You say that your texture is changing -- by which I think you mean that it appears to be blurry (including the one in your inventory). It's just your display that is blurry, imo. Maybe you're a bit short with RAM ?

Try tweaking your graphic preferences in Second Life. For one, try reducing your draw distance down to 64 - that might help.

This is normal behavior for SL, as far as I can tell.

When a texture has a lot of very small, high contrast areas (like tiny white dots on a mostly black surface,) it shows a lot of what is known as "pixel crawl" when first uploaded, which causes it to appear to glitter.

(The render engine isn't sure which pixel on your screen to use for a white dot that's between two of them, so it renders it first in one, then in the other, as the screen refreshes. That tiny movement is where the glitter comes from.)

After restarting, the "pixel crawl," which is actually an anti-aliasing artifact that is generally considered a defect, disappears. The texture will appear smoother, or blurry.

This makes things like small black letters on a white ground much easier to read, and makes all of SL easier on the eyes in general. But I can understand that it's disappointing if you wanted the "glitter."

There are a couple of ways to get glitter in SL, but they require scripting. You could use particle bling, but it's probably more than you want.

For a subtler glittering effect, you could use an animated texture that is essentially two frames with a tiny bit of offset in where the white spots are. That would cause the motion that the brain interprets as glitter, without using particles.

The texture would be a little harder to set up, since you would want to offset the glitter bits in different directions for a more realistic effect. But it might be worth it for a prim (I'm afraid this wouldn't work on non-prim clothing.) Let me know if you want more info about how to do that.

Hope this helps!

Thank you all!!! I learned that SL need as much memory that I can feed into. So my Christmas wanted gifts will now include memory and a new video card. Mine seem just to be good, but not perfect. I have 512 meg of ram and an ATI radeo 9600xt with 128 meg of video ram. So I think the limit his reach!

Secondly, I think that Robin put the finger on my problem. The thing you describe seem to be exactly the same that I have experienced, with so many frustration to see my superbe black glittering texture (imagine the texture of a Lisa Minelli dress, lol) completely washed! But now, with your explanation, I understand well more why that thing happen and calm my frustration to have paid so much L$ in texture uploading for nothing.

I'm not shure if I understand you well, Robin, but I think you explain that your technic of an animated texture will not work on non-clothing... Since I will use my glitering one a jewel, will it work too? And yes I want to know more about that technic, cause that kind of texture will be a must in my jewel making. Does it created like the publicity banner on the web with the use of something like PSP?

Again, thank you all for your help!