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Vector-based textures

by Jacob Minkoff · in Technical Issues · 03/17/2008 (5:50 pm) · 1 replies

Does anyone know if any version of Torque supports vector-based textures mapped to 3D objects? I'm looking to be able to create a game that uses a very large amount of detailed text and signage that is easily readable when viewed close-up. With traditional raster-based textures, I'd need a ridiculously large amount of high-res art that would never fit into RAM on a console and would make for huge downloads in online distribution. Designing all the art as vector would allow it to scale infinitely without pixilizing and would fit in a tiny amount of memory. Being able to use TrueType fonts in 3D space would be particularly useful. Does anyone have any idea if I can import art from a package like Adobe Illustrator and map it onto a 3D object as vector art without converting to raster? If importing isn't possible, then does the engine have any tools that support that sort of art or does anyone know of any other projects that have implemented such a feature? Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.

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#1
03/18/2008 (9:13 am)
It does not, and I'm not aware of any way to do that currently outside of some interesting/wacky pixel shader code. Graphics hardware is optimized for sampling as the primary means of getting texture data, as opposed to procedurally generating it. Chances are you'd be passing data through the sampler anyway, unless you were able to fit all of the data needed for the vector source into shader constants.

If your only concern is text. Render-to-texture, call it done.