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Tarina Sewell
Just Browsing Thank you
Join date: 20 Jul 2007
Posts: 2,180
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09-11-2007 17:35
I am creating files for uploading for clothing. They are uploading at a high resolution and I belive cause me some lag.
What image size and or resolution should these, upper & lower body and skirt files be when uploaded.
Thank you very much,
TS
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Nyoko Salome
kittytailmeowmeow
Join date: 18 Jul 2005
Posts: 1,378
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09-11-2007 18:47
generally your options are 512 and 1024 (or 256 if you care - in varying width/height combinations, generally for clothing/skins, keep 'em square  . 512 is friendlier that 1024 textures - because it is an 'area' multiplication, 1024x textures take four times the time to process. now, there is dispute over this, as this 'baking' of textures happens on the server end, but either it's less load for you or someone else huh? i figure. upload two textures, with 512 and 1024 at the ends of their names - set them up and compare if you really need that extra detail in your clothing, settle for what is acceptible.
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 Nyoko's Bodyoils @ Nyoko's Wears http://slurl.com/secondlife/Centaur/126/251/734/ http://home.comcast.net/~nyoko.salome2/nyokosWears/index.html "i don't spend nearly enough time on the holodeck. i should go there more often and relax." - deanna troi
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Chosen Few
Alpha Channel Slave
Join date: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 7,496
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09-11-2007 19:03
Actually, the outfit baking happens client side. Here's how the process works. When you "wear" a texture, meaning you put it on a piece of clothing or skin, the first thing that happens is it gets downloaded to your local machine. Your SL client software then bakes the texture into a composite with all the other textures your avatar is wearing, to produce a single composited outfit. That outfit, which is a set of three such composited textures (upper body, lower body, and head) is then uploaded back to SL so that everyone you encounter can see it. This process happens every time you edit your appearance, change clothes, or hit the Rebake Textures command.
Now, here's how the texture size comes into the equation. The outfit composite textures are always baked at 512x512. So, you could put on a 1024x1024 or a 1x1, and the end result would still be the same, three composited textures, each at 512x512.
This means that using 1024x1024's for your clothing and skin textures gains you absolutely nothing. Everything's just gonna get downsized to 512 anyway in the composite. The only thing you accomplish with 1024's is to slow down the compositing process because you have to download twice as much information before it can begin.
So, if you perform Nyoko's experiment, you'll end up with two identical outfits. The only difference will be that one took a little longer to process than the other. Visually, they'll be exactly the same.
What does all this mean? In short, it means always upload your clothing & skin textures at 512x512. Using any other size is an exercise in futility.
EDIT: As Namssor just pointed out in another thread on this exact same topic, if there ever is any visual difference between a 512 and a 1024 in an outfit, it's likely the 512 would actually come out sharper than the 1024. This is because Photoshop is always going to be better at downsizing images than SL is.
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Namssor Daguerre
Imitates life
Join date: 18 Feb 2004
Posts: 1,423
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09-11-2007 19:47
From: Chosen Few EDIT: As Namssor just pointed out in another thread on this exact same topic, if there ever is any visual difference between a 512 and a 1024 in an outfit, it's likely the 512 would actually come out sharper than the 1024. This is because Photoshop is always going to be better at downsizing images than SL is. My experience has been that the images that are resampled by SL's algorithm tend towards the grainier side where sharp detail is placed in the texture. It's not that one image is "sharper" than the other, but that one image (the 512 image) looks more accurate because Photoshop's interpolation generates a very smooth average of resampled pixel data. Results can vary from image to image (i.e. a blurry 1024 image begets a blurry 512 image no matter how it was resampled). These are all my observations from quite a while ago, when I was experimenting with SL file size too. I have learned quite a bit from Chosen's detailed explanations over the years (has it really been that long?). |
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Nyoko Salome
kittytailmeowmeow
Join date: 18 Jul 2005
Posts: 1,378
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09-11-2007 20:11
From: Chosen Few Actually, the outfit baking happens client side. Here's how the process works. When you "wear" a texture, meaning you put it on a piece of clothing or skin, the first thing that happens is it gets downloaded to your local machine. Your SL client software then bakes the texture into a composite with all the other textures your avatar is wearing, to produce a single composited outfit. That outfit, which is a set of three such composited textures (upper body, lower body, and head) is then uploaded back to SL so that everyone you encounter can see it. This process happens every time you edit your appearance, change clothes, or hit the Rebake Textures command.
Now, here's how the texture size comes into the equation. The outfit composite textures are always baked at 512x512. So, you could put on a 1024x1024 or a 1x1, and the end result would still be the same, three composited textures, each at 512x512.
This means that using 1024x1024's for your clothing and skin textures gains you absolutely nothing. Everything's just gonna get downsized to 512 anyway in the composite. The only thing you accomplish with 1024's is to slow down the compositing process because you have to download twice as much information before it can begin.
So, if you perform Nyoko's experiment, you'll end up with two identical outfits. The only difference will be that one took a little longer to process than the other. Visually, they'll be exactly the same.
What does all this mean? In short, it means always upload your clothing & skin textures at 512x512. Using any other size is an exercise in futility.
EDIT: As Namssor just pointed out in another thread on this exact same topic, if there ever is any visual difference between a 512 and a 1024 in an outfit, it's likely the 512 would actually come out sharper than the 1024. This is because Photoshop is always going to be better at downsizing images than SL is. i grok ya - and i've seen similar advice elsewhere. honestly i can't say i've ever 'really tested' this out myself! i am prejudiced to 512s just for speed's sake. however i do have 1024 uploads up mr. chip's templates, and those (plus some makers, like sze and others) also insist on 1024s as i've asked about, and even now, post-whatever-speedups in pipeline, i would have to call it a 'noticable' diff, in the apparent detail and rezzing speed. but i've no ready baselined measurements to provide to prove so... just 'sixth sense' on that one. always ready to eat my hat over it. i've just seen so much debate in forum over the pipeline, and only my own private development time to speak from, but no hard and ready 'good housekeeping laboratory' stats to give. whatever the case - powers of 2 still applies.  and 256/512/1024 is the measurement to go for. (are 128s uprezzed to 256?)
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Nyoko's Bodyoils @ Nyoko's Wears http://slurl.com/secondlife/Centaur/126/251/734/ http://home.comcast.net/~nyoko.salome2/nyokosWears/index.html "i don't spend nearly enough time on the holodeck. i should go there more often and relax." - deanna troi
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Tarina Sewell
Just Browsing Thank you
Join date: 20 Jul 2007
Posts: 2,180
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09-11-2007 23:45
Thank you! All of you for your help!
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