Tutorial : Texels and making textures for 3D (2D advanced, 3d basic)

[Lion.Kanzen]

 

 

In computer graphics, a texel, texture element, or texture pixel is the fundamental unit of a texture map.^[1] Textures are represented by arrays of texels representing the texture space, just as other images are represented by arrays of pixels.

Texels can also be described by image regions that are obtained through simple procedures such as thresholding. Voronoi tesselation can be used to define their spatial relationships—divisions are made at the midpoints between the centroids of each texel and the centroids of every surrounding texel for the entire texture. This results in each texel centroid having a Voronoi polygon surrounding it, which consists of all points that are closer to its own texel centroid than any other centroid.

 

 

 

Learn the process of using Texel Density to make your assets look great in game engines with 3D environment artist, Tim Diaz and anothers.

Introduction

What is Texel Density? Texel Density is the procedure of making sure your meshes and textures are the proper height, width and depth. Now once you apply your working textures and materials, your model's textures will look crisp and clean and not blurry. For this tutorial, we will be using 3ds Max and UDK to create modular pieces with appropriate Texel Density.

Understanding Texel Density and why it's important

Before we jump into this tutorial, we need an understanding of why we are doing this. Textures make the asset, area, level, characters and so on look a certain way and more believable to the player. Many games, however, break this suspension of disbelief by having certain assets break Texel Density.

So how can you find it? It's easy: load up any game and just run around your favorite interior or exterior. If you're outside, look at the terrain, and then look at a rock or a wall. You may see that one, two or even all these pieces look vastly different. One piece may be very crisp and clean, but right next to it is a rock or a wall that looks a little burry, or maybe stretched, or both.

This issue, while it may be minor to most, can distract a player, making them realize they are just playing a game. You don't want that. You are selling an experience – that is always the goal. Something like this leads to bad screenshots, negative feedback, and in some cases shows a lack of pride in your work. While there are always situations where you don't have a choice, or it wouldn't make much sense to follow these guidelines, this is to help you know what to look for and to avoid this issue as much as possible.

 

Creating UVs (the wrong way)

For the sake of knowing what is good Texel Density and what is bad Texel Density, take the wall you just made and duplicate it. Move it to the side and we will set up one correctly and one incorrectly.

As you can see in the image, I have added a blue box to represent 4 feet. So with that as a guide, let's look at a bad unwrap. We are looking at one side of the wall. I have set my UV unwrap screen to go full 4096 x 4096, and have a texture with the proper sizes. As you know, our wall is 1024 x 2048. However, if you look at the wall, it's stretched to 4096 by something in-between 1024 and 2048. This will come in stretched and warped. And if we look at this shot with a checkerboard pattern, these are not perfect squares. This is the easiest giveaway that your texture will come in looking odd, and that it doesn't have proper Density.

 

Good Density

Looking at this image, we are about maybe half a foot away from it. We can see it is very crisp and clear. There's nothing blurry about it, the texture is coming in at full resolution and your player is happy.

Bad Density

As you can see here the bricks are completely warped, the brown-gold areas that are in-between the bricks in the texture are blurry, and this reminds the player that yes, I am in a video game. It's just a sloppy mess.

Texel Density tips and trade-offs

Now that you have seen what the good and bad of Texel Density is, here are a few things to keep in mind.

Texel Density is extremely important, and with newer hardware and software coming out, your art needs to hold up. But there are always exceptions to the rules.

If you're making smaller trims that, for instance, are going to be tucked away under something, you don't need to waste time making it to proper Texel Density, its barely going to be seen so make it so it works.

Consider elements outside of the playing space. They can get huge, and realistically, they would need textures that no engine could process. The player will never get close to them, so Texel Density here isn't as important.

One-off pieces should use the guidelines, but a hero piece in the end just needs to look the best it can be.

 

 

1024px / 100 cm = 10.24(10,24) px/cm.

the max size in 0 A.D is 2048*2048. (for a texture size)

2048/100 cm=20.48 px/cm.

 

If you want to achieve 1024 px per 1 meter square
(100cm), texel density will be 10.24. Mind that if you plan to use a 2k texture, the texel density still the same. E.G.
An uv of a plane of 1m x 1m with the texel density of10,24 will cover entirely the uv space if you use a 1k (1024x1024px) texture if you use a 2k texture the plane uv will cover a quarter of the uv space

 

 

 

Blender tutorial.

 

 

 

sources

https://80.lv/articles/textel-density-tutorial/

https://3dtotal.com/tutorials/t/texel-density-for-game-art-tim-diaz-udk-bricks-3ds-max-unreal-tutorial-environment

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qbOqP

mirror:

 

https://archive.is/0A1RW

 

 

Edited May 9, 2021 by Lion.Kanzen

[Lion.Kanzen]

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

@Stan`if you tell me what is missing, I will complete it.

[Lion.Kanzen]

@Trinketos esto te va interesar.