Black holes when painting textures (and other texture issues)
by Victor Didra · in Torque Game Engine · 02/15/2002 (3:28 pm) · 6 replies
Hey guys,
When painting certain textures onto the terrain, black areas (not really holes in the world) appear. They appear to be where the engine tries to blend two textures and has a problem. So, my questions involving this and other texture issues:
1) What exactly causes this, and how can it be prevented?
2) What is the difference between using png and jpg? This applies to all textures, not just terrain (in case one has an advantage in one case, while the other is good for something else.)
3) What is the ideal resolution for terrain textures? 512 seems to actually look worse than 256 for me (running a geforce 3 btw.)
Well, thats about all I can think of off the top of my head.
Vic-D
When painting certain textures onto the terrain, black areas (not really holes in the world) appear. They appear to be where the engine tries to blend two textures and has a problem. So, my questions involving this and other texture issues:
1) What exactly causes this, and how can it be prevented?
2) What is the difference between using png and jpg? This applies to all textures, not just terrain (in case one has an advantage in one case, while the other is good for something else.)
3) What is the ideal resolution for terrain textures? 512 seems to actually look worse than 256 for me (running a geforce 3 btw.)
Well, thats about all I can think of off the top of my head.
Vic-D
#2
Actually, I am pretty sure that those textures I was getting black holes with were that size. I'll have to make sure they are all the correct size and post here if that still happens. Thanks again for the help.
Vic-D
02/15/2002 (4:35 pm)
Thanks Phi, looks like I'll be going with .png's at 256x256 (which I suspected I would.) Actually, I am pretty sure that those textures I was getting black holes with were that size. I'll have to make sure they are all the correct size and post here if that still happens. Thanks again for the help.
Vic-D
#3
textures all PNG 256*256 72dpi
textures all JPG 256*256 72dpi
conclusion: the error isn't caused becuase of texture size, dpi, or format... so what is wrong here??
It also happens all the time when manually painting the terrain.
09/30/2002 (3:08 am)
Sorry for digging up this old thread.. but... I'm having this problem with a map of mine. I tried this:textures all PNG 256*256 72dpi
textures all JPG 256*256 72dpi
conclusion: the error isn't caused becuase of texture size, dpi, or format... so what is wrong here??
It also happens all the time when manually painting the terrain.
#4
Vic-D
09/30/2002 (12:41 pm)
It turns out it happens when too many textures meet at the same spot. If you get it, just repaint the area solidly with your base texture. Then, try to do that area again with one less texture if possible.Vic-D
#5
I expect this may be why.
I've found problems after attempting to use 6 or more different terrain textures at the same time on a single terrain mesh.
10/01/2002 (3:25 pm)
Somewhere in the Docs it mentions trying to keep the number of textures at 4 or below.I expect this may be why.
I've found problems after attempting to use 6 or more different terrain textures at the same time on a single terrain mesh.
#6
Manually overpainting is a solution... but those maps are soo big...grrr :(
10/02/2002 (5:28 am)
Yes,it kicks in when using more then 4 textures.Specially when I try like 4 textures with height settings, and try to add one with the slope settings.Manually overpainting is a solution... but those maps are soo big...grrr :(
Torque 3D Owner Phil Carlisle
When painting certain textures onto the terrain, black areas (not really holes in the world) appear. They appear to be where the engine tries to blend two textures and has a problem. So, my questions involving this and other texture issues:
1) What exactly causes this, and how can it be prevented?
I think this is caused by one of the textures not being 256x256, I got this myself recently when i used 128x128
2) What is the difference between using png and jpg? This applies to all textures, not just terrain (in case one has an advantage in one case, while the other is good for something else.)
In this case, not much, jpg has compression (lossy) which can degrade images, in practice, for a terrain, its fine. PNG *can* support alpha channels, but again, in this case it doesnt matter.
3) What is the ideal resolution for terrain textures? 512 seems to actually look worse than 256 for me (running a geforce 3 btw.)
256x256 is the only size that works properly right now, thats because the stride (width) of the texture is needed to blend the base textures correctly
Phil.