[codey (old)]

DPI (Dots per inch) is only a scale setting for printing out to paper. Has no relevance when doing textures for a game.

cheers

[Shminkyboy]

Or give him some info... because it does, in fact, have relevance.


Keep your image pixel sizes to ^2

Use sizes such as 64x64, 64x128, 256x256 DO NOT use off sizes like 96, they won't work in ET.

This way if you port to etut, you won't have texture problems, ET is stricter about texture size than q3a is.

[HoboHumpinSlut (old)]

use jpeg whenever possible (ie you dont need transparency) to keep the size of the pk3 low.

someone correct me if i'm wrong, although i don't think i am.

[codey (old)]

[quote name='"ShminkyBoy"]Or give him some info... because it does' date=' in fact, have relevance.[/quote']
I maintain that DPI don't have any relevance. It's a common misconception that higher DPI automatically means better image quality which it doesn't. It only means that it will be printed smaller.

AFAIK, if you use bigger texture sizes than 512 pixels older 32 mb video cards can't hold them so they'll be reduced by the game engine before moved to vram. Use 256x256 or less as much as possible unless the textures will cover big parts of the screen and have fine detail. Per example in Oildepot the textures for the cliffs and the cisterns have 512x512 as they looked like shite with less but the concrete top surface of the roads was less detailed so it worked OK with 256x256. The bus have two 1024x256 textures but then it's only made of five brushes. And I wouldn't do a skybox with less than 512x512. On the other hand I used a whole bunch of 128x128 textures as well.

Jpegs work fine or ut_oildepot.pk3 would have been at least 5 times as big
Just remember to use .tga extension even when referencing jpeg images in the shader scripts for some odd reason. The actual files must use .jpg extension.

I'd guess most people could stomach a 20 mb file in this time of broadband access but smaller is always better if you want lots of downloads of your map.

cheers

[codey (old)]

Only time you need to use a TGA image is when you need a alpha channel for see-thru textures such as a fence or partial reflexions such as a window on middle of a wall texture. Otherwise make it a jpeg.

[quote name='"luniaq"]I am a bit confused about your sentence codey' date=' sorry my english is not that good.[/quote']

Here's a example, it's a shader for a ceiling light - the actual image file is a jpeg called lysror02.jpg but notice the .tga extensions in the script.

textures/codey1/lysror_1000
{
    qer_editorimage textures/codey1/lysror02.tga
    q3map_surfacelight 1000
    q3map_lightRGB 0.988 1 0.780
    surfaceparm nomarks
    surfaceparm nolightmap
    {
        map textures/codey1/lysror02.tga
    }
}

Hope that helps

cheers

[Wily Duck]

My own personal experience is for when you want precise textures, use .tga, for smaller file size use jpg.

As for image sizes, ydnar's test map of recent uses skybox textures that are 1024x1024. Stunning detail. Of course your video card has to support textures that large, but I believe most modern vid cards support 2048x2048. Do some googlin for the official word.

For the shader, you don't have to specify a file extension. Q3 will figure that out for you (just be sure you don't have a .jpg and .tga of the same file name, it will pick one and you'll go wtf).