Multiple 4k textures

[Frankie]

Hi Andrew and congratulations for this nice piece of software.

I've been playing around a bit with the demo version, and it looks like it doesn't support multiple textures natively. If I import an object with several materials each using a separate texture, 3d brush will pack them into a single 4096 (2048 for the demo) texture. And then unpack at export (using original UVs).

This is alright if the original object uses relatively low res textures (the sum of all texture is inferior to the max resolution of the packed single texture in 3d brush).

But for my project, I need to paint an object composed of 6 materials, each with a 4k texture, and it won't work (or I'm missing something) because 3d brush will pack them into a single 4k texture therefore loosing resolution.

Are you planning to support multiple 4k texture with the ability to paint across them?

Thank you,

Franck.

[Andrew Shpagin]

If you want to use 4 textures 4096x4096 then you shoulf operate with mesh on 40-60 millions of polygons (there are 64 millions of pixels on 4 textures). I can add support of textures 8192x8192 (it costs me several clicks), but it will require a video card with 600 mb on board.

8192 x 8192 x 4 x 2 = 536 870 912

( 3DB needs to create 2 32-bit textures, 1-st - color & opacity, 2-nd - normals & specular )

[Frankie]

If you want to use 4 textures 4096x4096 then you shoulf operate with mesh on 40-60 millions of polygons (there are 64 millions of pixels on 4 textures). I can add support of textures 8192x8192 (it costs me several clicks), but it will require a video card with 600 mb on board.

8192 x 8192 x 4 x 2 = 536 870 912

( 3DB needs to create 2 32-bit textures, 1-st - color & opacity, 2-nd - normals & specular )

Thank you for your answer. I understand going beyond 8k textures is currently not possible. Even hi-end videocards top at 1.5 GB of vram.

I'm currently working in mudbox on a mesh around 100 million polys, and intend to bake it onto 6 4k textures (96 mega texels). The reason I need to bake it on multiple 4k texture is my target platform (ps3) doesn't support textures larger than 4k.

That is why I'm looking for a solution to paint color across several 4k textures. However even 8k texture is only equivalent to 4 4k textures but I think it is the only way to go for now.

Thanks again.

[Andrew Shpagin]

100 M polygons?

If it is no secret, what kind of model is it? Landscape, organic model? How is it possible to put these textures into ps3 texture memory? (256m) Of couse, if you use dxt1-5 for color and 2bytes/normal it is possible, but I think if it is game there should be at least several models.

[Frankie]

It is an environment but I cannot describe it. Yes it can easily fit into 256 MB of vram using dxt1 xy for normal (z is being reconstructed in shader) + z for specular and a second rgb dxt1 texture for albedo.

144 MB in total for 6 4k textures * 2. (including mipmaps)

Of course I understand you need to work with uncompressed textures in an authoring tool.

[rimasson]

Just wonderoing how Bodypaint can manage multiple layered Psd texture ...

[Frankie]

Just wonderoing how Bodypaint can manage multiple layered Psd texture ...

Hi Francois... remember good old Unreal

I haven't try Bodypaint, but I think it probably uses a software renderer. This way it wouldn't be restricted to videocard constraint but uses main ram instead. Same for Deep Paint 3d.

That's the drawback of doing it in hardware with 3d brush (the good thing being what you see is what you get). But as vram size expands it won't be a problem for long. For me it is a problem right now because the power of pc don't outstrip latest consoles by a sufficiently large margin yet. And like at the early days of ps2, it was difficult to create resources because pcs were not powerful enough to cope with the amount of data the ps2 was able to process. Same today with next-gen console. In a few month from now, that won't be a problem at all I think.