Blurred Textures
by FruitBatInShades · in General Discussion · 09/14/2004 (1:51 am) · 8 replies
When using detailed textures torque has a nasty habit of blurring the image during it's rescale process for items like floor and walls.
Here are a few ideas for possible solutions, have any of these been as a code modification?
1. Allow 512,256,128,64,32 versions to be supplied by the modeller and page them in as necessary (like DDF files)
2. When resizing my textures in PSP I run a sharpen filter before I resize by 50% and this gives a much clearer resize, could a sharpen filter be used in the engine the same way?
Here are a few ideas for possible solutions, have any of these been as a code modification?
1. Allow 512,256,128,64,32 versions to be supplied by the modeller and page them in as necessary (like DDF files)
2. When resizing my textures in PSP I run a sharpen filter before I resize by 50% and this gives a much clearer resize, could a sharpen filter be used in the engine the same way?
#2
It is much closer the the tone and details. I haven't looked at the code but the biggest iamge is the one that should be resized, if u reduce by 50 and then do the same again to the resized image, the blurring gets progressivly worse.
09/14/2004 (6:24 am)
You can see the difference it makes in the following image. The blurred one is a normal resize whilst the second one had been sharpened before it was resized.It is much closer the the tone and details. I haven't looked at the code but the biggest iamge is the one that should be resized, if u reduce by 50 and then do the same again to the resized image, the blurring gets progressivly worse.
#3
www.gdargaud.net/Hack/SourceCode.html#GraphicFilter
www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1994.asp
09/16/2004 (3:19 am)
Here are a few links to sharpening code and theories if anyone feels clever enough to have a go :), I don't do maths :(www.gdargaud.net/Hack/SourceCode.html#GraphicFilter
www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1994.asp
#4
09/16/2004 (7:19 am)
Just curious, does this have anything to do with Mipmapping?
#5
Maybe someone can point out some sort of texture where this isn't a good idea?
09/16/2004 (8:14 am)
Yeah it's the rescale which is done when creating mipmaps which blurs the texture. Rescaling and running a sharpen filter on the result is actually a good idea as I've used it myself and it works well. It's really easy to implement, provides a lot clearer textures and only affects load times.Maybe someone can point out some sort of texture where this isn't a good idea?
#6
09/16/2004 (8:26 am)
Please don't post these in the General forum area.
#7
09/16/2004 (8:27 am)
Can you make your own mipmaps explicitly to get around this problem entirely? (Sorry if this is a dumb question, I'm just a curious coder, never really messed with the art side of things much).
#8
12/07/2004 (4:34 pm)
Yes theres a texture format called dds that has all the texture sizes in one file, so the artist can tweak the results to get the best effect :) 
Torque Owner David Mac
My work-around has been to import the object, get a feel for it's relative size, then rescale it in the renderer so it is the correct size on the 2nd or 3rd import. That way I don't have to use the TGE scale option.
If you are using the same object in different ways and scales to economize on required artwork, then this isn't going to work.