Making Material-do's & don't, file size/type rec'd. Help

[Anonymous]

I am making new materials to match virtually everything we do in a home, so I am setting up hundreds of images at this time. Since this is so time-consuming and I haven't worked with Archicad long enough to know the potential pitfalls I may be walking into, I was hoping the good people here at this forum could give me any advice on the best way to go about doing this as well as anything I should be sure to avoid.

Background facts:

1. I create all my photos with a high-end Nikon Digital Camera in high resolution

2. I use Photoshop to edit the photo

3. I save the photo as a jpg into my custom folder for all my images

4. I model almost every component of my homes so my pln files are averaging about 100 megs per house

5. I want these high quality images so my renderings will be as authentic and aesthetically pleasing as possible

6. When I set up the material, I usually specify it s size to match the photo. Ex: I saved an image of a 4" x 4" tile and set it up in photoshop to be exactly 4", then when its brought into the material settings dialogue, I specify the texture to be 4"x4" so everything corresponds.

My questions are:

1. Is jpeg the best format?
2. Should I try to keep my images under a certain size
3. Are there any nuances I should be aware of when setting all these images up?

Any other suggestions or things I should be thinking about as I am doing this?

Thank you

[Erika Epstein]

vincon2 wrote:
Any other suggestions or things I should be thinking about as I am doing this?

Thank you

Buy Dwight Atkinson's books.

[Dwight]

The size of a texture image is related to the final size of the rendering and how close the viewpoint gets to any given surface.

The rule is no less than one pixel of texture data for one pixel of rendering. Your high resolution textures will consume lots of RAM, resulting in a slower rendering, but these same textures will make really big renderings and close-up views without any chromatic abberation or video smearing.

While I admire your desire for detail, you should carefully assess the closeness of viewpoint and size of your renderings. This is easy to do by measuring rendered pixels. I have successful texture maps as small as 20x40 pixels for perforated metal and individual texture files as large as 3 Mb - for full sized, full page wood grain rendering.

LightWorks takes a long time to make a rendering, especially if you use the realistic sun shader. So, it is not productive to try for huge renderings and therefore using all large texture maps is a waste of time.

JPEG sucks because of its inability to contain an alpha channel, altho you CAN alternatively use a masking file for an alpha channel in LightWorks shaders. That's a lot of extra work and stops you applying the Internal engine material automatically in LightWorks. JPEG files also contain compression artifacts that interfere with smooth Photoshop manipulation post-rendering.

If you want to spend your time to good effect, spend less time on texture mapping and more time learning to control lighting.

[Anonymous]

Dwight wrote:
The size of a texture image is related to the final size of the rendering and how close the viewpoint gets to any given surface.

The rule is no less than one pixel of texture data for one pixel of rendering. Your high resolution textures will consume lots of RAM, resulting in a slower rendering, but these same textures will make really big renderings and close-up views without any chromatic abberation or video smearing.

While I admire your desire for detail, you should carefully assess the closeness of viewpoint and size of your renderings. This is easy to do by measuring rendered pixels. I have successful texture maps as small as 20x40 pixels for perforated metal and individual texture files as large as 3 Mb - for full sized, full page wood grain rendering.

LightWorks takes a long time to make a rendering, especially if you use the realistic sun shader. So, it is not productive to try for huge renderings and therefore using all large texture maps is a waste of time.

JPEG sucks because of its inability to contain an alpha channel, altho you CAN alternatively use a masking file for an alpha channel in LightWorks shaders. That's a lot of extra work and stops you applying the Internal engine material automatically in LightWorks. JPEG files also contain compression artifacts that interfere with smooth Photoshop manipulation post-rendering.

If you want to spend your time to good effect, spend less time on texture mapping and more time learning to control lighting.

Thanks.

Your over my head in much of what you've said. Until I can learn everything you described, should I continue to save my images as jpegs or some other file extension?

I have to load these material textures now because I'm using them in my schedules as well, so I need something to pass until I can learn how to control lighting, etc.

Do you have any training courses in or near Texas soon?

[Dwight]

-- many people find JPEG acceptable, but it is not the best.

-- not enough interest in Texas to do a seminar.

[Anonymous]

Dwight wrote:
-- many people find JPEG acceptable, but it is not the best.

-- not enough interest in Texas to do a seminar.

I have lots of air miles and love to travel, what is your schedule for the coming 6 to 12 months amd maybe I'll fly in wherever you have your next one

[Dwight]

Smart move, rather than flailing around for days.

At the end of January, I plan three, full day seminars:
Oakland, Jan 30
Los Angeles, Jan 31
and
Orange County, Feb 1

The seats always sell out in California, so act now.
California folks know quality.

You should order my book in the meantime. See below. Quick service.

PM me for details.

[Anonymous]

Dwight wrote:
Smart move, rather than flailing around for days.

At the end of January, I plan three, full day seminars:
Oakland, Jan 30
Los Angeles, Jan 31
and
Orange County, Feb 1

The seats always sell out in California, so act now.
California folks know quality.

You should order my book in the meantime. See below. Quick service.

PM me for details.

Thanks for the info. Who's running these seminars? Digital Visions? Other?

I actually have your book, I think I may even have both books. Ive been learning Archicad for about 15 months and I'm just starting to get to learning about doing renderings that aren't out of the box.

With all that I an trying to learn, I just haven't been able to give extended time to concentrating on your book, but it looks very good. Is there a section in there that I overlooked that deals with file types, sizes, etc?

[Dwight]

page 110

[Anonymous]

Dwight wrote:
page 110

thanks

Who is running these seminars?

How do I sign up?

Who do I contact, etc, etc?