Integrating 3D models with photography
Interested in integrating your 3D work with the real world? This might help
# 1 30-07-2009 , 03:20 PM
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 203

texturing: is resizing good or bad

Hi,
As some people might know, I in the process of texturing my model of a 2008 Mustang GT. What I have been trying to acomplish is to bake Hi poly mesh onto a Low poly mesh. In a previous thread, one other user had suggested using XNormal, which I have tried it. After trying different map sizes, I realize that lower map sizes, such as 512x512 as oppose to 2048z2048, does not just effect the rendering quality in Maya, but it also effects the normal direction around the uv borders. I thought I could try baking a 512x512 map because my main focus is to develop my models with a texturing size totaling no more than 512x512. In spite of this, I also unusally found that if I import a 2048x2048 normal map into Photoshop, and resize it to 512x512, I did not loose hardly any detail when mapping this normal map onto my low-poly mesh in Maya. Now I have heard from others in the past, that it is not recommended on resizing texture maps, since you will loose most of your details after resizing. However, in this case, did I just get lucky, that I did not loose hardly any detail after resizing the normal map, or am I wrong about others not recomending this method?

# 2 31-07-2009 , 07:36 PM
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Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Boston, MA
Posts: 2,314
Never size up (unless you are going to re-do it),
but ALWAYS size down to as small as acceptable.

I always paint textures on a 1024X1024 canvas and scale down to whatever size I need for the given model. It allows me to put more detail in.

Same goes for Normal mapping software.


Environment Artist @ Plastic Piranha
www.joopson.com
# 3 04-08-2009 , 04:14 PM
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 203
Wow, I am glad to here that. Thanks

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