Blurry Text

Hi all, I am after a little advice! I have a 512x512 file which is basically a 10x10 grid of numbers, the one image will be used for the entire object by setting the offset of the texture etc.

My problem is that once uploaded in to SL the numbers look really blurry, even after the texture has been completely loaded.

They are going on to a single face of blocks sized .287 x .287 x .287, with a face repeat of 0.1 for both Horizontal and Vertical.

I guess what I am asking is what is the best way to stop the blurriness? I know it will not be perfect in SL but is there a certain style font that will help etc. I am using PS CS3

Thank you!

If your grid is 10x10, you've got roughly a 51x51 pixel area for each number. That should be more than enough for just a couple of digits (I presume you're going from 0 to 99). Before we talk about SL, how do the characters look in Photoshop? When you view the image at 100% magnification, is everything nice and crisp? If not, then try changing the anti-aliasing mode for your text. Also, try to avoid fonts that are overly complicated. Simple fonts like Arial and Century Gothic will be easier to read than more complex ones with lots of serifs, curls, variations in thickness, etc.

Assuming the texture is not blurry in Photoshop, the problem might just be that the final high-res version of the texture has not been created yet in SL. When you upload a texture, SL creates 4 progressive stages of it. The stages go from very blurry, to blurry, to mostly clear, to clear. Ordinarily it only takes a few seconds to create all four. But when the system is strained, it can take as much as 24 hours or so. The asset servers have been having severe problems lately. It's possible you'll just have to wait a day and take another look.

Also, I'm assuming you're not zooming way in on the prim so the number fills your whole screen or something. Blowing up 50 some pixels to be 1000 pixels wide or so is quite a stretch, after all. How do the numbers look when viewed from a more reasonable distance?

In other words, if you get as 1:1 with it as you can, meaing the prim occupies roughly a 50 x50 pixel area of your screen, do the numbers still look blurry? If not, then you were just zooming in too close before. To have a number fill the screen without looking pixelated, you'll need a bigger texture. Think about whether or not that is worthwhile before you do it, though. How close do you think the average person is going to zoom in? If the object is intended to fill the screen, then by all means use a big texture. But if people are likely to view it from more of a distance, keep the texture as small as you can.

You might also want to think about using two surfaces instead of one, and then dividing the texture into just 10 frames instead of 100. If you make your texture, say, 128x1024, it will actually be half the size of the 512x512, but you'll have about double the frame size. You can then make each digit up to 128 pixels tall instead of just up to 50 pixels tall.

You don't even have to spend an extra prim for this, by the way. You can cut a cube in half to make two adjacent "front" surfaces.

or 3 or 5 faces can be achieved. Is 4 possible?

Thanks for your replies, I think I am probably being to critical, I have changed the font to just plain Arial and resized things a little and it is getting better. Thanks again