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Zonax Delorean
Registered User
Join date: 5 Jun 2004
Posts: 767
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10-05-2005 14:11
From: Alain Talamasca <RANT>  Most people I have talked to are not interested in paying scale for a texture, no matter how spectacularly rendered. Most people are not willing to pay more than $L15 - L$20 for a single texture, or L$250 for a bundle. This is not to say that no-one is so willing, only that the market will not bear a luxury item of that sort in sufficient quantity to make it worth the artists' time. </RANT>  I have at least 500-1000 textures, because I do need that many. Sometimes I build something of stone - needs variations on stone textures. Sometimes wood - need many wood. Sometimes a railing - need 10-20 railing textures, or more. A builder is nothing without a big, big texture library. Please make a calculation of what would've that costed on your prices! At L$ 15 a piece, it's roughly L$ 7500. But at your prices, it would be at least L$ 120 000. Quite a difference. And sometimes I still find my library lacking But you don't need to sell good textures as luxury items, at least not in the future. When masses (real masses) come to SL, with hopefully many builders, maybe you won't need to sell quality textures for more than L$ 15, because it will sell more, and you'll get your money that way, too. |
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Chip Midnight
ate my baby!
Join date: 1 May 2003
Posts: 10,231
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10-05-2005 14:11
I would love to see something like that, Blaze. I know a lot of engines derive lighting from data stored in each vertex. 3ds Max makes use of this and allows game developers to "paint" the vertices of any model. The grayscale value of each vertice is exported along with the models into the game engines. The vertex data is read and that part of the model is lightened or darkened accordingly. It happens at render time so it doesn't increase texture load. That may be a crappy explanation of how it actually works but that's the basic gist of it.
_____________________
 My other hobby: www.live365.com/stations/chip_midnight
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Emma Soyinka
Got moo? o_o
Join date: 13 Sep 2005
Posts: 218
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10-05-2005 14:21
From: blaze Spinnaker Well it doesn't need to increase prim count, however, yes, texture load does increase.
Though, the trick Adam mentioned above should not be ignored.
I think it would be cool if LL could have a texture layer and a lighting layer to all surfaces, and you should be able to use your client to bake in the lighting layer statically by pressing a button and setting your lighting preferences.
When people visit your build they see the lighting layers that you have baked in.
The only problem is that this might get overused and suddenly the asset server doubles in size. Hmm, I suppose you could theoretically do it without upping prim count, but you'd wind up with an enormous texture load. For instance if I have a wall of brick, with 4 windows which each have a windowsil and need a shadow beneath the sill. If this is a big wall it might be better to combine a tileable base texture with a shaded "beneath the sil" texture that can't be tiled, then cut up the wall into segments: some tileable, some not tileable. You could just do the whole wall in one texture with all shadows baked in but if its a big wall it's gonna be a big texture and people will not be thanking you. So I'd say that in a practical way prebaking shadows will raise primcounts, although wether its negligable or a lot depends on the build itself? |
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blaze Spinnaker
1/2 Serious
Join date: 12 Aug 2004
Posts: 5,898
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10-05-2005 14:25
Baked in procedural lighting data. Very cool.. sounds like exactly what we need.
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Pol Tabla
synthpop saint
Join date: 18 Dec 2003
Posts: 1,041
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10-05-2005 14:26
This prebaked shadow technique can also be effective used strategically (and sparingly). In the attached before and after photos, I was unhappy with how the planter/fountains seemed to visually "float" on the orange brick surface they were sitting on. I used a radial gradient (black in the center fading to transparent on the edges) applied to a disk-shaped prim to give the fountains shadows. My sim usually follows a normal day/night course, so I didn't worry too much about getting a realistically cast shadow, instead shooting for a general effect of "groundedness."
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Forseti Svarog
ESC
Join date: 2 Nov 2004
Posts: 1,730
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10-05-2005 15:04
I agree... you have to choose what gets a shadow and prioritize. If you have a complex build, trying to capture every shadow on every surface would either be prim insane or texture insane. Just think about the shadow of comething more complicated than an monolith being cast across a staircase... that's a lot of unique textures. reminder to those who like shadows... if you want tree shadows, just send me an IM http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/pic.aspx?id=9604 |
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Tya Fallingbridge
Proud Prim Whore
Join date: 28 Aug 2003
Posts: 790
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10-05-2005 15:32
From: blaze Spinnaker
So the next time you curse the lack of lighting or shadows or some cool rendering trick - I suggest you log on to WoW and take a look around and realise that the problem is not SL, but rather a lack of advanced texturing skills amongst those who are building in SL.
uh huh... it is our world, its up to us how we want it to look |
