How to use photographs

Hello,

I need some advice on uploading and using real world photos inside of SL. Should I treat the photo size the same way I treat textures, in other words, keep the photo under 1024x1024 pixels or so?

I am confused because I have seen some truly enormous photos projected inside of SL, and wonder how they were setup.

Thanks!

A.

512 is recommended. Even those large photos/textures you see may not have been uploaded larger than 512. The larger your image size, the longer it may take to be seen on other people's computers depending on their PC specs. The quality of the image is not really jeapordized unless you upload someting at 50 x 50 px and try to put it on a 10 x 10m prim, then you have a problem.

Hope that helps!

I put a 512x512 photo onto a 40x40 prim and it looked OK. On a 10x10 is looked about the same. I did a series: 1024x1024, 512x512, and 256x256 ... the loss of detail is marginal between the largest and the smallest, but the memory requirement dropped from 4MB to 256KB. The memory requirement is INDEPENDENT of the rendering size on-screen. If I squish a huge texture onto a 0.5 default cube or spread it over a 10m panel the graphics card has the same amount of work to do.

Make them as SMALL as you can and get acceptable output. Remember the OUTPUT device is the user's screen (72 DPI).

Great info! Thank you!!!

be sure that you own the copyright of the photos you wish to upload however