Decal scaling problems

[Eric2575]

Well, I've jumped from making a decent looking decal of a rivet to a full rivet map. The problem was that in order to get the rivet decal to look as crisp as I wanted in the render, I upped the resolution at which I created the decal considerably. The model is 170' long on the horizontal, scaled 1:1 in AM. The decal map is the length of the model and several times it's height. All in all the map is 2.12MB.

 

I tried resizing the map after I finished with all the rivet placement, but when I applied the resized map to the model, the rivets were noticeably degraded (see second pic). I'm no Photoshop wizard, so I may be doing something wrong.

 

Here are the specs on the current size map: see pic

 

 

Please help me, it took several days to make the rivet pattern map and I'd hate to lose all that work and AM seems ta have an issue with the size of the map. It gives a vague popup that says having trouble loading jpg to plugin??

[zandoriastudios]

You resize the image BEFORE you paint the details.

[luckbat]

And even though A:M supports JPEGs, use TGAs anyway. They're less prone to odd problems.

[Eric2575]

Ok, TGA's it is, but I'm still unclear on the rest.

 

William, as stated above, I'm not savy when it comes to image resolution, resizing pics, etc. It would really be helpful if you could elaborate on your post.

 

This is what I am doing right now:

 

1. Take a screen cap of the model part I want to decal in AM (wireframe)

 

2. Open the cap in Photoshop and crop the image to the model's extends

 

3. At first I tried painting the rivets at this resolution, but they were pixelated and blocky, so I figured I'll increase the image size.

 

4. Resize image to 10,000 pixel width - At that resolution, the rivets come out really nice.

 

5. Create a new layer over the resized image and paint in all the rivets.

 

6. Resize the image back down to apply the decal - now the decals look like crap.

 

It must be completely obvious to a lot of you, see William Sutton, that I am not going about this the right way. Would someone please lay out the correct steps for this procedure, pretty please....with sugar on top.... You get the picture

 

Thank you.

[Stuart Rogers]

I tried resizing the map after I finished with all the rivet placement, but when I applied the resized map to the model, the rivets were noticeably degraded (see second pic). I'm no Photoshop wizard, so I may be doing something wrong.

...

Please help me, it took several days to make the rivet pattern map and I'd hate to lose all that work...

Rule number one: Never, ever, make a change like that without taking back ups beforehand in case the results aren't what you expected them to be!

 

BTW In case you're not aware, A:M ignores the DPI of an image, as not all image formats store this. Absolute pixels numbers is what counts.

[MMZ_TimeLord]

Also, on decals, if the resolution changes but the aspect ratio remains the same, the decal stamp will still work without changes.

 

i.e. - take a 640x480 image and use it for a decal. Save your project and close it. Now scale your image up to 1280x960 and save it. Now re-open your project. Your decal should remain unchanged except for the resolution.

 

This is an easy way to 'rough-in' textures for scenes. Use lower resolution images and then switch them out for higher resolution images with the same name for final renders.

 

I usually create my high resolution images from the lower ones, and then keep using the lower ones for animation blocking and animatics.

[Eric2575]

Stuart, Jamie:

 

I know you guys want to help me and are trying to make it clear to me what needs to be done, but maybe I'm just too tired or just too plain dumb, but what I am reading here is really Greek to me. "Absolute pixel numbers"??? What exactly does that mean? How does it relate to my problem? How does that fix my problem? Btw, I have backups of everything, high res and low.

 

"If the resolution changes but the aspect ratio remains the same, the decal stamp will still work without changes" I just don't know what to do with this information.

 

I'm seriously in lala land. If it's not too much trouble, please just list the steps needed to make a high res decal map and then apply it to a model.

 

Am I at least on the right track? Screen cap the AM model and then resize it in PS to create the decal map? Is changing the size of the cap the same thing as changing the resolution? If not, do I need to change the resolution? When I'm done making my rivet pattern on the high res map, I do need to scale it back down, don't I? I mean if I don't , then I have this huge tga in the project slowing everything down. I see decals all over the place at a size of 500x500 or there abouts, yet mine is 10,000x8000. This isn't right.

 

Help

[Eric2575]

I went back to William Sutton's Balrog tut to refresh my memory on the whole decal thing. Now I get what you guys mean by "If the resolution changes but the aspect ratio remains the same, the decal stamp will still work without changes". I also gather from the tut that the higher resolution decal is not meant to be scaled back down. I think my mistake was to make the maps resolution too high. Maybe that's just the way it has to be in order to get the detail that I want from the rivet displacement map.

[luckbat]

New users often underestimate the dimensions that decals need to be in order to render properly. In fact, as far as rendering goes, there's no such thing as too high a resolution. It's just that gargantuan decals slow our machines way down. That's why many people use low-res decal images while they're working, and swap in high-res ones only when rendering. Best of both worlds.

[zandoriastudios]

Eric, I think you're getting it now--you don't scale the image back down.

 

I would consider this: How large will this detail be onscreen at your final resolution when you render your project? If, for example, your final frames are going to be at 720x480--your decal will only be seen at it's full size if it happens to be filling the entire view.

[ypoissant]

I would consider this: How large will this detail be onscreen at your final resolution when you render your project? If, for example, your final frames are going to be at 720x480--your decal will only be seen at it's full size if it happens to be filling the entire view.

 

This is a very important advise. Technically, your decal resolution should be at least twice that of the closest final render. 4 decal pixels (2 high x 2 width) per final render pixel. "At least" meaning that you can have finer resolution for better results but try not going coarser resolution than 4 decal pixels per 1 rendered pixel.