File size, quality, saved as.... plus more...

What shall i think about when i save pictures in Photoshop and want to upload them to SL - pls.

72 dpi are inuff in al cases? or larger files....??

How large in saved size shall the file be for best result... of course that are depending on how large the prim will be??

Any other ”trick” the get the pics sharp in SL???...

I want to use Photos, illustrations and more..

Al kinds of info/tips/trick are welcome..

For best results

resolution: 72dpi,

filetype: targa (.tga)
24 bit if rgb
32 bit if rgb+alpha

Channels / Mode:
RGB, and add an ALPHA channel (RGBA) if you require transparency.


Dimensions should be a power of 2 up to 1024 max
ie: either side should be 32, 64, 128, 256, 512 or 1024
doesn't have to be square but each side should be one of the above sizes.
Only use 1024x1024 in extreme cases where you really do require high detail because it uses a lot of memory on the card and it takes a while to download to clients. You can actually upload ANY size and SL will automatically resize it to the nearest power of 2 however it's possible some detail can be lost when it does this so i think it's best to work in the correct size from the very start.


Filtering:
I find sometimes a single once over with a "Sharpen" filter or "Unsharp Mask..." helps hilite fine detail in images. SL seems to soften images so making them sharper in photoshop can sometimes help.


Hope this helps

....yes you are an ANGEL))


Tks write it out save it at the wall... at the side of my love..

Have a great day!!

Yes, 72 dpi is standard resolution for images intended to be displayed on a compunter monitor. You should only go higher than that for images intended for print, which for SL means never.


Don't worry about file size directly, as that is a function of the canvas size of your images. For example, a color TGA that is 512x512 pixels will always be either 768KB or 1MB, depending on if it has an alpha channel or not. A color TGA at 256x256 will always be either 192KB or 256KB, again depending on whether or not it has an alpha channel. So, what you should be thinking about is not how big the file will be in terms of bytes, but how large the image will be in pixels. Here are some guidelines:

1. Always work in powers of two for your canvas size, meaning 128x128, 256x256, 512x512, 256x512, etc.

2. Keep the images as small as possible. The larger the image, the more system resources it consumes in order to be displayed, and the longer it takes to rez when you view it inworld. 256x256 is usually big enough for 90% of the things we look at in SL. 512x512 is okay as long as you do it sparingly. You should almost never go as big as 1024x1024, the only worthy exception being for images that have a lot of fine text on them that would be illegible at any smaller size.

3. You asked about prim size in relation to image size. Contrary to what a lot of people tend to assume, prim size is not really a good guage for determining how big to make a texture. The question is not how big is the object physically inworld, but how much of the screen is it likely to occupy. An object might be 40 meters wide inworld, but what the heck does an SL meter mean to your display? Absolutely nothing. Your monitor only cares about how many pixels it has on its screen, and that's all you should really care about as well. If you're confident that an object is going to occupy a large portion of the screen when people look at it, then use a larger texture. If you feel an object will only take up a small portion of the screen, then use a smaller texture. Keep in mind that if your monitor is 1024x768, then you can NEVER even see an image that is 1024x1024 at full size, so there's pretty much never any point in making a picture that big. SL really excels at making small images look great at full screen size. In fact, it's one of the best programs I've ever seen for doing that. So, in most cases a 256x256 will look just as good as a 1024x1024 would have, while using just 1/16 of the resources.

Here's your rhyme for the day: keep those textures small, or else you lag us all.


Never use jpeg. Always use TGA. When you use jpeg, you lose quality many times over. Jpeg is a highly compressed, inherently lossy format. It's intended for web pages, where speed is more important than quality. It's not good at all for a 3D environment like SL, especially considering that SL itself is going to take whatever you give it and convert it to jpeg2000 anyway, another type of compressed format. So, when you upload a jpeg to SL, you're compressing it twice, which is kind of like making a copy of a copy on a Xerox machine; it doesn't look so good. When you upload a TGA, it only gets compressed once, and there's virtually no discernable loss of quality.

Don't understand this 72dpi thing. Surely this has no relevance to anything except printing ? Doesn't all the software we have control screen size other ways, and the only thing that matters sizewise is the pixel size ?

SL knows nothing of dots per inch. Where are the inches ?

All that matters is the number of dots. In photoshop, size your image to actual pixels, just zoom in/out as required to work on it.
Bother about dpi only if you want to print, and even then, for a 1024/1024, 72dpi is maybe not a good choice. Big piece of paper.

Technically, you're right that it doesn't matter since there's really no such thing as an "inch" as far as the screen is concerned. If something is 72 pixels wide, it will be one inch wide on the screen at 100% maginification. However, I still feel it's a good practice to keep your screen-destined images at 72 dpi (or more acurately, ppi). When you create a new image in Photoshop, you have to enter SOMETHING into the pixels/inch field. You might as well use what matches the screen if that's where you're intending your image to go. There are situations where ppi would matter, even for screen images, so it makes sense to establish good habits and to use standard practices, even if it's not technically required for SL.

Excellent! I always wanted to know that, because streaming completely uncompressed bitmap files just never sounded right to me! Thanks!

Also, good point about size of prim on the screen, though of course you could argue that with the freedom af camera movement in SL any prim can far exceed the size of a screen. I would still go with the question: How big is the prim going to be on the screen, under normal circumstances and intended view distance? If it will occupy about half of the screen or more go with 512x512 (even though that's only 1/3 of a 1024x768 screen), and go smaller for sprims that will be smaller. Optimizing textures while still maintaining visual quality is something everybody benefits from.