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cons of non-square textures

Started by yoyohobo665 Nov 23, 2007 at 2:32 AM 4 replies 1.1k views

Original Post

Nov 23, 2007 at 2:32 AM

I'm currently making a sword for a game and am about to texture it. The texture resolution is to be no larger than 512x512. I find it would be much easier to texture the sword, while keeping the same level of detail to each piece, by making the texture 256x1024. The file-size stays the same which is good, but I'm reluctant to go through with it because I'm not sure if there are any cons to using a non-square texture. I've never seen any professional use non-square textures in a videogame. Why not?

Zao

Nov 23, 2007 at 2:44 AM

Usually, textures are not a single continuous image, but unwrapped flattened geometry fit into a square texture. That way, the amount of detail given to different pieces of the mesh can be adjusted just by changing the amount of the texture allocated to those faces.

dpadam450

Nov 23, 2007 at 2:53 AM

Alot of videocards DON'T support non-power of 2 textures. I know my Geforce 7 series supports it. I dont think the 6 series does though.

superpig

Nov 23, 2007 at 3:01 AM

Some old, old cards don't support non-square textures. Also, being non-square means you lose a bit of efficiency on your mipmaps.

It's not really something to worry about these days. As long as you're sticking to power-of-two, rectangles are fine.

Jerax

Nov 23, 2007 at 5:09 AM

Quote:
Original post by dpadam450
Alot of videocards DON'T support non-power of 2 textures. I know my Geforce 7 series supports it. I dont think the 6 series does though.

6 series do, they were the first (nvidia) cards to support non-power 2 textures.

Non-square is fine, having square textures hasn't been an issue for at least 10 years.

yoyohobo665

Nov 23, 2007 at 4:23 PM

alright thanks alot you guys :). i ended up using a square texture anyway lol. but its still nice to know that.

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