Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
The downsides of this type of building—including lack of ine control over the vertex positions displaced
by the sculpt map, high rendering cost due to collisions on its default spherical physics hull, and dificulty
with editing the forms inworld—have eventually paved the way for the widespread adoption of mesh use in
virtual worlds. Eventually, sculpted prims will probably become a footnote in the history of virtual world
building as mesh content replaces it.
6.6 CONCEPTS IN TEXTURE CREATION, 2D GRAPHICS
Texture creation is the other primary aspect to the design of beautiful forms. Nothing enhances a form or
embellishes it like a well colored, nicely rendered texture on the faces.
6.6.1 Q ualiTies of g reaT T exTures
What makes a great texture? Strive for ive qualities: (1) eficient use of resolution or size of the graphic ile;
(2) color harmony; (3) a sense of lighting and shadow; (4) “tile-ability”; and (5) speciicity.
Eficiency: The size of your texture makes a difference in the eficiency with which your virtual world
can be produced on a visitor's screen. Unless you need to make a sign with lots of text and graphics on it,
the overall sizes of your textures should not exceed 512 by 512 pixels, and if you can make it with 256 by
256 pixels, then go for it. You should note that textures always have to be made in the “power of 2” formats
(1024, 512, 256, 128, 64, and so on), thereby providing nice, easily stackable texture blocks for the computer's
memory. Getting into the habit of using the smallest possible textures can save you loads of grief by avoiding
slow rezzing times and complaints from your visitors, who have to look at a gray model while the textures
load for them.
Color Harmony: To create color harmony in your textures, think about the environment in which they
will be. Sunset in Paris covers the buildings with a rosy blush, tropical reefs have a lovely aquamarine glow,
and wintertime in Helsinki is full of irelight and snow. If you are making a full-blown model with baked
textures in Blender or 3DS Max, then the lighting in your scene could provide the color harmony as well
as shadows for your textures that will be imported with the mesh. If you are just making a single texture to
apply to an object inworld, then it would be wise to select a dominant color in the environment and put a
little of that into your graphic. Of course, all is not lost if you ind that your graphic looks out of place in the
virtual environment. A quick adjustment of the underlying material color on the object and you can blend it
all in. This phenomenon, observed in an environment that is uniied in overall color, is called the Harmony
of Dominant Tint.
Lighting: All quality textures have a sense of lighting and shadow. To get the “visual texture” of a rough
or convoluted surface like a stone wall or even a brick face, built-in shadows and highlights are necessary
in your textures. You should consider the general direction of the overall lighting in the environment as you
create your textures. Will you “lock” the region into a WindLight setting and offer that ile to your visitors, or
will you let them choose their own lighting? Perhaps you have a custom day cycle set up for your region. All
of these factors should be a consideration in the creation of your textures. To organize this, ask this question
irst: What is the key light (main source of light) in my environment, and how will it change? You may want
to make only subtle shadows on your built elements and let the visitors activate their own real-time shadows
for the full effect. Whatever you do, make sure that you test it under all sorts of lighting conditions and take
pictures so you have a record of how it looks as you change things.
The 3D modelers like Blender and 3DS Max allow you to apply textures to your models, light the scene,
and then “bake” the shadows onto the surface as you render the sides of the model into a lat texture. These
textures can actually be unwrapped from the model and manipulated as 2D iles in a graphics program
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