Doom inches v. pixels

[mmax]

Hi

 

I was wondering on average how many pixels are there in a Doom inch, because I have a set height and length for a certain wall and I want to make a unique texture on that wall. I know of the Fit option in the surface inspector but I'm afraid doing that would also distort my grainy normal map I already have made (the normal map is not going to resemble the texture).

[SneaksieDave]

Do you mean Doom units per inch, instead of pixels? If so, it is approximately 1.1 units/inch.

[mmax]

I knew about that already, but yeah I guess I can just change the resolution on textures while creating them right? What's a good resolution for a texture, 72 pixels/inch?

[Komag]

I think your question is hard to understand, because I don't think it works like you think.

 

Most textures in Dark Mod are around 1024 I think (or 512?). There are no "inches" or pixels, there is only the resolution. Now if you make a texture that is only 64x64 and you try to "fit" it on a large wall, you will get super crappy results in game! If you take a 1024x1024 texture and "fit" it on a tiny block, you will have super good results that are actually more wasteful than helpful.

 

You'll just have to test out textures in game at different scales on the wall and see how it works, see how much resolution you need for your particular wall to look "decent" or "good" in game.

[mmax]

I think I am getting the concepts wrong.

 

I originally use Paint Shop Pro to create textures, but then switch to Photoshop for normal mapping. When I start a new picture I get a box that lets me choose the parameters like dimension and resolution like this:

 

 

It defaults at 72 for the Resolution, and that's what I've been doing so far. The textures look fine, but then again I've mainly been using one-colored walls.

 

I've found out that at this resolution it's at 8 pixels per Doom inch, which means that the smallest grid size (0.125 Doom inches) constitutes one pixel. I suppose that's pretty low, so I'll be keeping an eye out as my map progresses whether I should upgrade to more hi-res textures.

 

EDIT: Can I make a texture that's at a resolution of 1024 but tie in a normal map that has a resolution of 72? I like the normals of my walls and it would be a shame to have to redo them.

Edited November 18, 2008 by mmax

[greebo]

Forget the pixel/inch resoution value, only the actual pixel width and height is important. You can scale your texture up and down in the editor and the graphics card will use whatever pixel information it can find.

 

The resolution value is only important when placing these pics in DTP applications, it is unimportant for D3.