Category:Moviestorm Modding -> Textures -> Textures Guide

Texture Sizes and Performance

This article is based on numerous forum posts made by Moviestorm’s Chris Ollis.

Textures

While an object (prop, costume, face, etc.) may look very good with textures at a resolution of 2048 x 2048, there are two important issues to keep in mind.

One, the majority of Moviestorm’s textures are, for performance issues, 512 x 512. So, compared to the other objects, this one will stand out considerably. This may be desirable for certain shots, making the object stand out or for an extreme close-up, however, the typical background object would benefit more from blending in than standing out.

And two, performance.

Chris Ollis wrote: Texture resolutions in Moviestorm are kept deliberately low so that the tool runs on as many home and school systems as possible. We try to keep everything under the 512x512 mark. But that is just for one pass i.e. 512x512 for Diffuse, Specular and Normal on a character’s face or jacket.

Sure, low texture resolutions aren’t the only thing keeping Moviestorm performing on as many systems as possible, but, they are an important part of the balancing act that does. The polygon count of models, the resources needed for a number of animations, gestures, facial expressions, dialogue, lighting, texture resolutions, and more, are all part of the mix. If you throw this balance off, it will cause Moviestorm’s performance to suffer or worse, cause Moviestorm to completely shut down.

Here are some resolution guidelines and handy tips that will help keep Moviestorm running as efficiently as possible. Keep in mind that as Moviestorm evolves, these resolutions may change.

Guidelines

Floor/Wall/Ceiling Tile Textures - Diffuse 256x256 - Specular 128x128 - On user-made content Chris Ollis wrote: A floor or wall tile doesn’t usually need to be bigger than 256x256, however I’ve stumbled on a few that are over 2000 pixels wide. While a key model in your scene can often shine with high res textures, tiling backgrounds are just a waste of resources, especially when they are each taking about 16mb of ram.

Model Textures - Diffuse 512x512 - Specular* 256x256 - Normal* 512x512 - On user-made content Chris Ollis wrote: Too many 512s and your system will still seize up, so work your way back from there as props become less relevant or likely to appear right in front of the camera. I would love to give you a cut out and keep guide of how big textures should be for every asset type, but there will always be an exception. Just try to make all textures (and meshes) as small as possible before you find them rubbish to look at, that’s all I can advise. That said, if you want masses of detail by all means go for 1024x1024, 2048 or 4096. It’s undeniable things will look better but they will slow down [Moviestorm’s performance] and lack continuity with other assets and characters in the scene.

* For both Specular and Normal textures, detail is much more important than resolution. Generally, they can both be 1/2 the resolution of the Diffuse. In some cases, where even the need for detail is small, they could be 1/4 the resolution of the Diffuse.

Tips

Limit file redundancy - On user-made content Chris Ollis wrote: If you are using the same texture on multiple objects in your mod, put just one copy of that texture in a shared folder in the root of the Props folder. i.e. Chris’s Mod/Props/Textures NOT Chris’s Mod/Props/CAR1/Textures and Mod/Props/CAR2/Textures and Mod/Props/CAR3/Textures. Then you can browse to that folder in the Modders Workshop and save even more disk and card space.

Double-check Sketchup Textures - On user-made content Chris Ollis wrote: Sketchup converting people should pay a lot of attention to this as Sketchup models are often made for single renders, so huge textures are fine for their original intentions. Once the Sketchup process has been done, go in to the the file folders and check what you’ve got and if need be open them up in Photoshop and fix them.

Continue to - Textures Guide - 3. Moviestorm Texture Types