I was just wondering if there was a reason why all textures are the sizes that they are, like 4000x4000 or so on, is there some sort of aspect ration that must be kept to keep the texture looking right when it goes on the model. If there is why is that? (or did I answer that; to make it look right)? tnks

The aspect ratio of the texmaps doesn't matter. They just evolved to 1:1 over the years because it's convenient to work with them in APS or PSP using that size.

Some people say tex size should be in powers of 2, 1e. 256, 512, 1024, 2048, etc. Supposedly poser loads it faster or something. Personally, I've never seen any hard evidence to back this claim. But who knows what poser does? mac

UV mapping locates map portions as a percentage of the total size (such as a point located 12% down & 15% across) and presumes a 1:1 grid ratio. If not, no real problem, you will just have higher resolution in one dimension than the other. Nance ponders that bold statement then runs off to go confirm

LOL

actually those numbers maclean quoted are in powers of 8 and have to do with graphics programs fondness for such. There are tricks in Photoshop using this quirk to make creating seamless textures easier

Poser can use virtually any size, just that the smaller the texture is in size, the lower resolution in output render you get, the bigger the higher in resolution you get, it's a matter of resolution, [correct me if i'm wrong] Cheers

Thanks lyrra. Can you tell I don't know my 8 from my elbow? One other thing to ponder. The bigger the texs you use, the slower poser will run, since they're all stored in RAM. Will someone now correct the mistakes in that statement, please? I'm sure there are at least 2. LOL. mac

so let me get this right, it dosent matter if I have a texture that is 4000x4000 or say 3500x2380 for a v3 model, they will both render the say, the the obvious resolution diff., but there isnt going to be any irregular streching of the textures by the polys in the models or anything is there. thank for all the help so for

Powers of 8 would be 8, 64, 512, 4096. Powers of 8 are also powers of 2, but the reverse is not necessarily true. The numbers 256, 1024, and 2048 are powers of 2, but not powers of 8. Dale LaRoy Splitstone

Hehe... actually, all of you got some parts of this right ;). It's powers of 2, and the real reason for this is your video card hardware (and/or low-level 3d display-drivers, not the software). Since Poser uses a software renderer, there's probably no difference in whether you use power-of-2 dimensioned textures or not. Apps that use hardware excceleration (Direct3D, OpenGL, etc) on the PC want them dimensioned that way because that's what the hardware wants (and if it doesn't get them that way, it converts them internally to power-of-2 dimensions before using them). Anyway, to answer your initial question, all of these 4000x4000 sized textures are really overkill in most cases (since the character on your screen/render is rarely that tall), so assuming that your paint program has a decent scaling feature, you won't notice much difference until you get down below 1500 or so (depending on whether it's a full-body shot or an extreme close-up, obviously). Note also that the 'body' texture really should be 6-7 times taller than the head map to keep them in the same proportion, but the head map is typically just sa tall as the body to handle face close-ups.

Uhm and to answer your other question... if you start scaling the width and not the height (or visa-versa), again, depending on the camera settings (distant shot vs closeup), you will indeed see some stretching of the texture to compensate.

Spanki is correct, but the term "stretching" might confuse. Things will still end up right where they are suppose to be, but with extreme close-ups, you will eventually see lower resolution in the shorter dimension.

Oh boy. You mean I was right? mac (adds this to his list of dodgy credentials and sham diplomas)

my head hurts .... all I know is that if you use a multiple of 16 for an image in Photoshop, you will get almost seamless textures with certain filters. What poser thinks about files that size? I have no flippin idea. I was told once by Kai that it has something to do with the base algorithm originally used when coding Photoshop .... but that conversation was a LONG time ago in a BBS far far away Since large texures eat memory it would be logical to use them on a) large objects and b) important (close to camera) objects. Why large ones? well you have more pixels to spread around that way ...if you use a low res image on a large object it gets fuzzy and looks bad.

I thought the power of 2 thing was originally a request from Bryce users. It maches nicht to Poser, but Bryce seemed to care. Your textures probably ought to match up with the resolution of your renders. A big texture on a small render area is a waste. A small texture spread over a large render gets you artifacts: the program has the average the pixels for the undefined areas.

Doesn't matter to Bryce either.

I'm also a great beliver in the mutiples of 16, for the size, as Lyrra said. Years and years ago I used to program in C, and I dimly remember that computers count on 16 fingers- 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F,10 my thinking is why not make it easier on the computer, instead of a random size? 3000 is a nice even number, but not in base/16 counting. ;-) I also seldom make textures bigger than 2048 x 1536 or so, too.