Fix for decal de-rezzing?

[robcat2075]

I recall it being discussed here before... did we ever find a cause/fix for large decals that appear fine initially but then lose their res and appear blocky?

 

EDIT: I forgot to mention i was referring to the real-time view.

[Darkwing]

Multi-pass? That's always fixed any decal issues I ever had. Probably not what you're looking for as I figure you're one who multi-passes out of habit

[robcat2075]

I guess i should have said i meant the real-time view. A render still looks OK.

[John Bigboote]

Would it help to turn OFF and ON the 'show decals' button... page up down a couple of times and give the spacebar a good 'whump!'...?

[robcat2075]

Would it help to turn OFF and ON the 'show decals' button... page up down a couple of times and give the spacebar a good 'whump!'...?

 

nope, didn't work.

 

I've applied a large decal to a large sphere to use as an environment. It looks good until I do an onscreen render, then the realtime view gets blocky.

 

Even saving, restarting and reloading the project doesn't get the res back.

[NancyGormezano]

I've applied a large decal to a large sphere to use as an environment. It looks good until I do an onscreen render, then the realtime view gets blocky.

 

Even saving, restarting and reloading the project doesn't get the res back.

 

I'm not sure why you need to see the decal at a high res in the real-time, but I will assume there is a good reason.

 

I'm guessing this display problem has something to do with how much memory your graphics card has, and that A:M does not reset some parameter in the graphic card interface, to reclaim memory, once the graphics card memory gets full. I'll bet if you restarted your system the problem would get cleared. I assume you do not have any other programs running either, like After effects, photoshop, premiere. If you do - you might try using their "purge" commands. They also chew up resources.

 

Have you tried halving the resolution size of the image you are using? Many times I've noticed that people use gigantic images for decals, and most times it's overkill. You may be able to get away with a smaller image for rendering (ie instead of 4kx4k - go with 2k x 2k). Try it. I rarely ever go above 1000 x 1000.

 

If you insist you really MUST have such a large image for rendering, then a workaround could be to use a downsized image as a proxy, and switch it out when you do your really, really, final, final rendering.

 

I do remember there being a thread about how to get the realtime view back when this happened, but can't remember what the "trick" was. I think KenH might have reported it, or might have suggested a solution. I can't say I've ever found it a problem myself.

[robcat2075]

I'm doing R&D.

 

The large image is needed for rendering because, as an environment decal wrapped around a sphere, a small portion of it will fill the camera view at any time and needs to be of sufficient res to fill that camera view. Since the camera will pan more than just that small portion is needed to be on the environment sphere.

 

However... my question is: if it can be shown clearly in real-time before any on-screen render is done, why not after?

 

Here is the before and after:

 

[Fuchur]

You can try the following:

The folder "Images" in the PWS has got a property named "Preview Resolution".

You may want to set that to a higher value (for example 2048 x 2048) and see if that changes something for you.

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[Rodney]

Fuchur has ID'd what I thought was at the root of the issue.

I'm not sure how images would get the wrong setting on them unless you were experimenting with that setting.

That is the only place I know in A:M where the real time image resolution setting can be changed.

[robcat2075]

Making a change in those settings seems to make some small shift in the pixels but they appear to be the same large size none-the-less.

[John Bigboote]

What's weird is that they appear fine initially, then degrade and stay degraded. Perhaps a glitch/bug. It has never really bothered me- I figured it was the app being tactile.

[NancyGormezano]

What's weird is that they appear fine initially, then degrade and stay degraded. Perhaps a glitch/bug. It has never really bothered me- I figured it was the app being tactile.

 

Ok - now I know what you're talking about. Yes I have experienced that and I too have ignored it.

 

I still think it has to do with A:M's interface to the graphics card, and not resetting/setting something. With all the bazillion flavors of graphics cards, I'm amazed it works at all.

 

For a test, I opened my opengl tab in options and played with seeing what would happen if I enabled bi-linear filtered texture and yes there was a difference in real-time display. I did not see any change when I checked "antialias" option.

 

When I clicked show all extensions - there were a boatload of other options (none of which appeared settable), many of which have to do with textures, compression, display etc

 

It's anyone's guess as to which of those extensions may need to be reset/cleared/initialized in order to get back to original full res display.

[Wildsided]

Mine started doing that completely at random last night. Went from chor to model view and the textures went all screwy. Ah well they still look like they're sposed to when they render.