Texturing Large Model with Details

#1

Hi all.

A very basic question about texturing large models such as ground or landscapes.

I usually like to set my texture size about 2048 x 2048 or so. This has served me well in texturing characters and objects, but when I apply this to a ground model and render a close up shot, the surface is all pixilated. You could say all I need to do is bump up the image size but some 3D program has a maximum texture limit and using large files would slow down performance, even causing it to crash.

Games now a days have really seamless ground texture and I really like to know what kind of method they use to achieve such details.

#2

tiled textures + a system to blend them…

via vertexblends
or via vertexblend but texture based
or a unique giant texture to blend everything

#3

Although I know nothing about how game engines work, in everyday 3D a good practice is to use tiling textures.

So a repeating grass texture map mixed together with other grass textures using procedural noise for example.

These can then be blended with tiled mountain textures using gradients.

Using this method means you can use loads of 1024 maps instead of 1 enormous map. It’s versatile and easy to change and add as much complexity as you like.

#4

Here’s a couple of tutorials that may help:

http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/tiling_trick/tiling_trick.htm
http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/zoom/zoom.htm

  • Neil
#5

Thank you everybody
Especially soulburn3d for the tutorial link :slight_smile:

I now have a clue on where to begin.