Texel Density Theory

now before we get too far into the application components of uv maps there is one concept that is going to be critical to developing efficient cohesive uv maps that will make all of your textures look great texel density that term may not mean a lot to you now but if there are any takeaways from this course as a whole i encourage it to be this particular video so what is this texel density all about well to use it in a sentence adhering to a consistent textile density is how we will be able to efficiently uv unwrap our models to allow for cohesive artwork inversely poor or inconsistent textile density is most likely the reason why our textures look blurry fuzzy or simply just bad resolution textile density is not necessarily a physical tool like uv unwrapping is but rather is a guideline for how we would uv unwrap our models and is a constant across your entire model even across all of your assets in a given environment still kind of vague and a little confusing right let's break it up a little bit more and see what kind of understanding we can build up the smallest unit on a digital display is called a pixel which is short for picture element these pixels store color data and image files are the containers where we stored these pixels in essence images are digital containers for color when i pull up an image on my computer i am pulling up a virtual environment to tell my monitor where to draw pixels and which color to shade them hopefully you can remember back to the first video in the series where i explained that the u and v dimensions of our texture space were named differently from the traditional x and y as they don't exactly translate directly to the x and y of 3d space well this trend continues with how we actually contain and then display these color pixels while i can bring in an image to our texture space which uses pixels to be rendered in that environment we need to store pixels in a new type of container to be rendered on the associated polygons when we transport them into 3d space these containers are called texels which is short for texture element just like how pixels are the smallest unit that makes up a digital screen a texel is the smallest unit to make up a texture in 3d space the term texel density is then in reference to the overall frequency or density of these texels across surfaces but why do we care about textile density well the short answer cohesiveness let's look at it i've unwrapped this model here to have varying textile densities across several of its faces while some areas look nice and crisp others look rather undesirable and no matter how good some areas look players will always notice not so much the bad areas but rather the inconsistency overall here is what the unwrap for this model looks like by using this tiling texture we can see just how much texl space a particular uv island will occupy here is the direct relationship between theory and application for textile density the larger i scale up one of these islands in texture space the more texls i'm giving that island thus the resolution will increase inversely decreasing the size of an island in texture space will decrease the amount of available texels so our resolution will become significantly blurrier here is where we use texel density in our workflow for the best possible texturing i need to ensure that the amount of texels i am giving each face is roughly the same universally depending on your modeling application you may have more or less tools at your disposal to make this process easier regardless of the tools the concept remains the same as my islands approach similar textile density we can see that the asset begins to appear more cohesive now when i scale our islands up or down together the resolution will obviously change but the overall aesthetic of the model is far less jarring than it was before here lies the power of harnessing textile density you can have lower resolution textures they look good as humans we are far more capable of recognizing patterns and therefore inconsistencies we are good at noticing specific texture resolution on its own but only when there is something beside it to compare to now if we are ensuring that all of our textures in an area are of consistent density depending on the priority of the area of course the actual resolution of the texture can become somewhat negligible within reason now this isn't only applicable to a texture across one model here we can see that these two assets have wildly different textile densities if i were to texture them and stick them into a scene within a certain distance a player would immediately notice the discrepancy of texels between these models this would be an example that would also benefit from utilizing consistent texel density guides to ensure that each model has similar resolutions therefore going unnoticed by the player now the immediate response would be to increase the texel density for our low resolution model however in this situation lower resolution textures may not be the bad guy here obviously you will want to maximize the quality and crispness of your textures as much as you can but depending on the limitations and constraints of the project lower resolution may simply be the way to go but we know that by adhering to a consistent textile density we can make even lower resolution look good consistently lower resolution textures across all of your assets will bode much better foreign environment than one with a few high quality outliers a defined textile density also allows for cohesiveness in another form the consistency between artists chances are if you work in games that you will be working on a team where several artists are making assets imagine the absolute mess that would ensue if none of them knew what textile density to match each artist would be hitting different resolutions likely even hitting different resolutions across their own assets textile density guidelines provide that universal language to not only make their art look good but to make their art look good beside good looking art done by other artists now the actual density that you will choose to follow will be contingent on your project and therefore not really something i can outright specify here fundamental attributes of your project such as camera perspective being in first person third person and etc have significant impact on which textile density will work best so now that i have hopefully instilled the value of consistency into your brain here is where i'm going to tell you that rules were made to be broken kind of and that 100 percent adherence to one texal density within a scene for most games is not only unoptimized but also reaches the point of diminishing possibly even negative returns when i say break the rules what i'm referring to is the fact that many games utilize multiple textile densities for one environment as we will see in the future videos of this series games require some strict constraints on the resources that they use one way we can optimize these resources while still maintaining visual quality and cohesiveness is by prioritizing regions within our game based on player proximity and camera perspective now just as a disclaimer this portion is not intended to be an in-depth analysis on level design but rather how the idea of textile density fits into many design choices that permeate throughout game design as a whole looking at this image here we can imagine this as the player character running along the designated path of a linear game immediately under her feet and fading off to the sides of the path are what would likely be considered high priority because whether this is a first person or a third person game we will be able to easily see these assets up close so we would want to ensure that they are crisp down near the end of the path as well as further off the side are what could be considered mid-priority assets because they are a little further off the beaten path in an area that players may not have significant access to the limited visibility of these assets may allow the textile density to be smaller comparatively to the higher priority assets finally the remaining artwork for this scene would comprise what could be considered the background these assets are significant in that without them the illusion of a believable game world would be broken but because there would be no possible reason the player would ever need to see these up close we can afford them the lowest possible taxal density of these three separate priorities breaking up our environments in this capacity has benefits in different ways it allows for more optimized resources since we aren't utilizing high fidelity images on low priority assets that equate to only a few pixels on our screen it allows artists to establish priority and therefore allocate appropriate time to developing uv unwraps and finally by following established textile densities for each category the game will have a cohesive visual quality that will ground players in a believable world textile density is a tough topic to really grasp the first time around so i encourage you to continue watching and maybe come back to this video from time to time hopefully with this video the seeds have been planted to provide you the aha moments during your viewing of this series as you will start to find that even if not directly referenced textile density plays an important role in all aspects of uv mapping while i may not explicitly state that we are utilizing textile density principles in other videos chances are that if it walks and talks like it it's probably textile density

Channel: Nicky Cry

Views: 1,136

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Id: -SwixDySbIw

Length: 10min 33sec (633 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 29 2020