So. I'm currently making something to upload for MTS. I've recently discovered how to make texture for clothing crisp and detailed. A method that can increase the size of the texture image to as large as I'd like, and NOT appear blurry or compressed in The Sims 2 game. It involves cutting the body mesh into two parts. One for clothing, and one for skin. Before I pursue uploading clothing whose texture will be too large, I'd like to know a bit more about your opinion on the following matters.


What is the largest size your graphics card can handle, given the image is square (e.g. 1 to 1 ratio)?

Would you be interested in having such a large detailed texture image for clothing on your Sims?

What would be the largest size you would be comfortable having in your game?


If wish to merely vote for the THIRD (3rd) question, ("Whats would be the largest size you would be comfortable having..."), please vote with the forum's buttons below:

AGREE	DISAGREE	HELPFUL	FUNNY	LOVE
512 x 512 pixels	1024 x 1024 pixels	2048 x 2048 pixels	4096 x 4096 pixels	None of the selections

I think I have one CC object in my entire game with a 2048 texture, and that's just because the 1024 texture was too blurry. For that particular object I have both options available, and only set the object to the larger texture if I'm taking veeeeery close-up pictures, which may have happened a couple of times in a few years.

Having large textures can for some people cause problems with texture memory. I get the pink-flashing problem where the memory for textures (and meshes?) is dumped when the memory load gets too high, so I put the limit at 1024 for everything. I do have some objects I've had to add two 1024 textures to, but since it's half the size of a 2048x2048 map, it's probably a bit better.

When that's said, I have increased the skin texture size on my default skins to 1024 for toddlers and babies ingame, so I have the option to use 1024-sized clothes. I hate the tiny sizes for the infant clothes, because you can't get any details onto the clothes without the textures getting washed out. I wouldn't go larger, though.

In TS2, the difference between 2048 and 1024 isn't all that visible most of the time. Sure, you may be able to get some more details out of things, but in something like a 1024x1024 picture or a Youtube video on a computer screen, the difference is barely visible. It's also an old game, and there's a good reason most textures stop at the 1024 size.

For those of you who may not know - you don't double the size from 512x512 to 1024x1024, or 1024x1024 to 2048x2048. You quadruple it. A 1024x1024 map can fit four 512x512 maps. Also, the bigger you go, the worse the performance will be. Larger textures also make files a lot bigger. Uncompressed files with 512 maps tend to hover at 100-500 kb. FIles with 1024 maps tend to be in the 1000-2000 area, roughly 4 times larger. Compressed, the size difference is often still visible.

For clothing, 1024x1024 is not so bad, 512x512 would be too blurry, and 2048x2048 unnecessarily big I’d say. For terrain paints, Maxis default is 256x256, but I use 1024x1024 as that seems best, I really don’t like seeing extreme blurriness in the game. The biggest I have is 2048x2048, for my snow replacement, and terrain texture for my replacement for dirt and concrete hoods. I tried 4096x4096, and while it does look better, files are getting too big in my opinion. For objects I use 1024x1024.
I don’t think my card would have much trouble with textures, and I’ve never encountered flashing pink objects – I have 4 GB video memory.

I was wondering about increasing the size of the image texture because video cards, computer processing, and technology in general have improved greatly that perhaps folks are fine with having larger size textures. The Sims 2 may have textures stop at 1024 x 1024 due to the computing power at the time. The game may be old, but I'd like to believe it can handle the larger textures. What may be the case, though, is if many are still running computers with video cards and processors from the late 2000s/early 2010s. So even though computing has evolved, perhaps the cross into that territory hasn't occurred yet.

How do you know what size your graphics card can handle?

I obviously didn't research the first question well, it seems graphic cards can have a maximum grid size of up to 65536 x 65536 pixels for a 2D image. I'll scratch that question out.

So to see what the largest image your graphics card can handle, it would be by "grid size". It's broken down from 1D, 2D, and 3D image specifications.

So my graphics card, being a nVidia GTX 560, can have a 2D image size up to 32768 x 32768 pixels loaded. But the resolution of a graphics card will be different.

Larger isn't necessarily better. You can cram a lot on even a 256x256, and still get sharp results (example: chair cushion 128x256, chair frame 256x256, end table 256x256, bookshelf 256x512, desk 256x512, and the only one that I had to go large with was the dresser: 512x1024; and that's only because the DXT damaged the edges)

I see most hairs have 1024x1024 textures, when for such a small surface, 512x512 would be ample in most cases.
Clothes and skin textures (children and up), yes, I can see the need for a 1024x1024 size, because it covers quite a large surface - and because DXTs, no matter how you build them, sometimes create unwanted artefacts, so we need to compensate for that.
Walls: maxis walls are rather small, especially the Base Game ones -- to the point that nowadays, they often look blurry. I've found that 256x512 walls offer a good quality/efficiency ratio. I dislike 256x768-sized ones, one reason being that 768 isn't a logical number (i.e. not a proper computer-multiple-of-2), so takes longer to process.

I mean, sure, you could have 2048x2048 textures everywhere, but what's the point?

For the most part, you see the difference up close. And when I mean up close, I mean when the item fills up most of the screen, which isn't how most of us take pics anyway.

The game has limits for what it can handle, and unless you have the newest and best (most of TS2 players seem to have average computers. Some have computers for more heavy gaming, but a lot have laptops or older stationary ones), going up in texture size is more likely to give performance issues.

If you're making a gigantic object that takes up more than nine grid squares, then maybe bigger can give a boost in quality. It depends on how the item is mapped, and how detailed the texture needs to be. Most items can make do with an 1024 map or smaller.

@Raindrop_D
If you look closely, the difference between hair texture size 512x512 and 1024x1024 is noticeable. If you never zoom in enough, you wouldn’t notice – for example, months before I made some hair retextures without fixing Bodyshop, because I thought it was just visuals, but it turned out it also affected texture size. And because of that my older retextures don’t have as big texture size as they originally would. I’m slowly remaking them and creating new ones (the ones I’ve uploaded have proper large textures), but when I use the ones I haven’t remade yet in my game and I don’t zoom in closely, I don’t notice the difference.
As for objects, it depends, sometimes it’s really noticeable that the texture is small. I remember I noticed it with some objects by Buggybooz – while textures and meshes are very well made (BB was one of the best object creators), they sometimes look blurred because of their size. My fern is 512x1024 as I only needed to texture narrow leaves (so 1024x1024 would have lots of unnecessary empty space), and it definitely wouldn’t look as crisp as it does now with smaller textures (picture).
Walls at the very least should be created on a 256x768 file and then resized to 256x512 (which has to be done for Mac users, the Windows version of the game is fine with 256x768), otherwise they look stretched (picture).

I have to agree with Voeille. I do like bigger textures for some things, especially stuff like plants and hairs (where appropriate). I often get close and notice detail. But then I'm fortunate enough to have one of those big gaming rigs - I quite understand that mid-range laptops are not necessarily able to cope well. I take it when I can get it. It would be easily possible to adapt most textures into two versions - bigger for those who can cope with it and more moderate for mid-range machines.

Interesting, about the hair textures. I only resized a few skullcaps, which is probably why it's not noticeable. I've never bothered resizing the main part, as I don't have the original textures, and resizing something that has already been mangled up by the DXT import would give bad results (especially the alpha). Ferns are also quite intricate, so I can well believe that 512x1024 is the right size for them!

Re. power of 2: although 256x768 is definitely the correct aspect ratio when designing the wall, it's still not a proper power-of-two. It's good practice to resize it to 256x512 for the game (and as you mentioned, essential for Mac users):
https://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/...ower-of-two.php

Whenever I design textures for games or anything using a 3D engine, I use powers of two for a healthy design, even if the engine can understand other sizes. I do most of my work in Substance Designer, which is very good for that -- I basically have to tweak the pixel ratio if I want to work with non-standard sizes. Substance isn't being annoying; there's a good reason behind its behaviour.

Yeah powers of two are definitely good, I do agree with that

Reading in here, I've redone my 4 new walls I did yesterday..Then I re did them. Then I re did them again. lol
Oh and for terrain paint, I agree with voeille 100%. years ago, I was annoyed that there was no matching terrain paint for the garden plot texture, so i made one. It was very blurry...and i could not understand why. It was the very same texture. Then i decided to make it bigger, as I had blurriness on another project of mine and that was due to a small size image. It worked. I then had a terrain paint texture matching the garden plot one perfectly!

With hair, if you're using one (or two) textures for all the layers, or if you're making long and/or detailed hairs, 1024 often gives the best result. If you're using multiple layers with different textures, or short and less detailed hairs, stick with 512 if you can. For most hairs you can map pieces over and over again in the same places, as long as it's a single-colored hair.

If you can get away with rectangular maps (512x1024) instead of going for a full 1024 map, that's also a good thing.

People with high-end computers seem to think they need high definition textures and ultra-high polycounts for everything - but you can get nearly as good results with a mid-to-low poly item and a good 512 or 1024 texture.