Unwrapped Road texture sharpness

[D C]

Hello all

 

I'm attempting to create an unwrapped road texture. My asphalt texture is 6000px and my unwrapped template is 10000px. In order to correctly scale the asphalt texture I'm having to reduce the size of the image when its copied into the template in PS.

 

My asphalt texture is super sharp, but when reducing the size it becomes very blury. I understand some image quality will be lost when reducing the size but upon render its pretty terrible. I've tried re sampling the image via bubonic reduction, but it doesn't help.

 

Is there a best practice when creating a road texture like this? I should mention my texture and road template are at 300DPI. I've also tried a few AA settings and its not helping.

 

Any advice greatly appreciated!

[James Vella]

right click on the layer in photoshop, convert to smart object, scale

[D C]

right click on the layer in photoshop, convert to smart object, scale

 

Yeah I tried that, reducing the size of the asphalt texture even within a smart object makes it loose quality.

[James Vella]

Yeah I tried that, reducing the size of the asphalt texture even within a smart object makes it loose quality.

 

Can you post a screenshot @ 100% resolution before and after scaling?

[mattcooper]

Have you tried using a High Pass filter?

[Nicolai Bongard]

Kind of difficoult to understand exactly what you are trying to do without some pictures.

If what you are trying to do it apply a flat mapping on a road network mesh, then import that image into photoshop and paste a texture to align with the road networks, the result is obviously that the texture will be downsized when you scale it down to fit the outlines of the geometry when the resolution of the images are such as they are. The bigger the road network, the smaller the texture will have to be (assuming it is a segment of road you want to paste multiple times across the road network), and thus you will loose resolution of your road texture. Either that or you will have to use a higher resolution image for the unwrapped template. It does not matter if you change/up the resolution of it proportionally in photoshop, it will still fit when you apply it to your mesh.

A solution may be to have multiple UV channels? Unwrap your mesh on one channel with a flat mapping set to fit to create a map where you can paint in imperfections and different blends and whatnot, and on another channel you unwrap the road geometry to fit neatly over your highres road texture in a way that would tile. Then you get the best of both worlds - your geometry will get the road texture applied in full resolution, and if you want to add dirt/damage and/blend between different road textures you could use the map from the other UV channel to paint mixmaps and whatnot.

DPI is not relevant unless you have to print an image.

[D C]

Kind of difficoult to understand exactly what you are trying to do without some pictures.

If what you are trying to do it apply a flat mapping on a road network mesh, then import that image into photoshop and paste a texture to align with the road networks, the result is obviously that the texture will be downsized when you scale it down to fit the outlines of the geometry when the resolution of the images are such as they are. The bigger the road network, the smaller the texture will have to be (assuming it is a segment of road you want to paste multiple times across the road network), and thus you will loose resolution of your road texture. Either that or you will have to use a higher resolution image for the unwrapped template. It does not matter if you change/up the resolution of it proportionally in photoshop, it will still fit when you apply it to your mesh.

A solution may be to have multiple UV channels? Unwrap your mesh on one channel with a flat mapping set to fit to create a map where you can paint in imperfections and different blends and whatnot, and on another channel you unwrap the road geometry to fit neatly over your highres road texture in a way that would tile. Then you get the best of both worlds - your geometry will get the road texture applied in full resolution, and if you want to add dirt/damage and/blend between different road textures you could use the map from the other UV channel to paint mixmaps and whatnot.

DPI is not relevant unless you have to print an image.

 

Thanks for this!

 

Instead of copying the asphalt texture across the template in PS order to fill it (and thus reducing the quality of it via down scaling it), I left my asphalt texture/material to max on Map Channel 1. I then created a series of unwrap templates for the road markings and dirt/grunge on map channels 2 & 3 respectively with necessary masks. This was all combined into a blend material and hey presto, its looking much better.

 

The result is what I'm after, is the above process what you were alluding to?

[Francisco Penaloza]

First, an image at 300DPI does not mean sharper, DPI is only applied when printing (DPI=Dots per inch). What you may have is a very large image pixel-wise and that make it look sharper.

This explains the same reason why when you shrink the image to fit your new map in photoshop, it loses resolution.

 

Having said all that confusing stuff, please remember that 3D Max by default will reduce the sharpness of any texture because of a legacy setting on the texture filtering. Go to your texture map controls and reduce the 'Blur' default from 1.0 to 0.1 or 0.01 that will display your texture closer to what you see in photoshop or similar. But be careful with this setting when doing animations, it may create moire effect of image vibrancy.

 

Also to make large unwrap textures, you'll have to use very large images, this will come will the larger amount of RAM into your scene, so even though it can generate a good result it is not optimal. A better way is what Nicolai recommended, creating a multi-layer texture or composite texture, with a single high-resolution image that repeats along your road or several images that repeat along your geometry.

 

Best luck.