tga.... png... jpg ...

Ok.. i have always designed under the assumption that .tga, or .png files are the way to go in second life..

but.. today as im cruising looking for a way to not have to make another custom texture for something and come across some kick butt textures being sold in Xstreet in a megapack.. to the tune of 17,000 linden.. a lot of textures, some i had actually found on the internet myself.. but still very nicely cleaned up.. .... they are all .jpg

Is it a bad thing to use .jpg formatted textures? how does it affect lag, download speeds.. graphics.. whatever?

Does anyone know?

Thanks

See the big orange sticky about file formats, at the top of the forum? Read it. Everything you need to know about the image formats SL can use is there.


Here are some quick answers to your specific questions:



In most cases, I would have to say yes. JPEG is a lossy, low quality format. It should only be used in situations in which image quality is of secondary importance to file size, like on Web pages. It has almost no place in texturing.




The format of the source file for SL textures can not affect things like lag and download speed in any way. This is because all image files get uploaded to SL in just one single format, JPEG2000. As soon as you hit Upload Image in your viewer, the SL client software goes to work to make a JPEG2000 copy of your image, and it is that copy that gets uploaded. Your original image file never leaves your own hard drive.

By "graphics", I assume you mean image quality. That's one thing that IS affected by the source format. If you start with a lossy, low quality image, you'll get an even lossier, lower quality texture. Even though JPEG2000 is optionally lossless, SL employs a lossy setting for it on most images. So, when you upload a JPEG-sourced texture, you end up losing quality twice. The end result is the "copy of a copy" effect.

Some people swear there's no visual difference. My answer to those people is they just don't know what to look for. I can see the difference (usually, anyway; there are exceptions, of course).

For maximum texture quality, use lossless source formatting. TGA, BMP, and PNG are all lossless.


See the sticky for more information.

You answered it.. I then question someone selling 900 something textures on slstreet for the incredible price of 17,000 linden when the images will be low quality once used..
we would have to spend 10 linden on each texture once downloaded.. converted to tga, or png and then uploaded.. that means.. and additional 9,000 linden to get something optimal..

shrugs.. I would be better off going to the source of the original textures, spending 35 us dollars and get them myself. and upload them and still come out ahead in the cost..


thank you

Are these textures being sold for in-world delivery, or would you need to upload them yourself? If they're already in-world, see what they look like. The severity of compression artifacting will vary from image to image. If you think they look good enough, they probably are. There are no absolutes here.

If they're being sold out of SL, and you'd need to upload them all yourself, then it's a bit more of a risk. You won't know how much loss the upload process will introduce until after it's done.



You seem to be misinterpreting slightly. There's no point in converting those images to any other format. The damage from the JPEG conversion has already been done. It won't get undone just by changing over to a lossless format after the fact. You'd just end up making an exact copy of the already low quality image. Flawlessly copied garbage is still garbage.

The point is the imagery has already been degraded at least once. When you upload it to SL, it will get degraded a second time. The only way to avoid that is to start with in image that has never been degraded at all yet. That way, when you upload it to SL, the damage that SL itself introduces will be kept to a minimum.




That sounds like the thing to do, assuming you don't mind spending the time it would take for 900 uploads. $35 is just about half the value of L$17,000. Add the cost of another L$9000, and you essentially break even, give or take a couple bucks.

I'm a little confused about one thing, though. Are you saying the seller of these textures is actually a reseller, not the same person as the original source? Does this reseller have permission to be reselling the images? Something sounds awfully fishy here.

$35 for 900 images sounds pretty unusual as well. That's less than 4 cents per image. Even the most reasonably priced subscription services tend to charge at least five or six times that for each image. Care to post a link to the source? I'd like to take a look.