Texel Density Made Easy

[@DeputyChiefWhip]

This is a really good video, normally I tell the less experienced artists that work for me, to just get the most out of their Unwrap by using reuse, even scaling and to increase detail when and where you need it. This process is difficult enough. But like our man said in the video, change the texture size in engine. If you have to texture using a strict Texel density, then you will already be working as a professional and will have learned the process from your lead or other colleagues.

[@joserororo9240]

Quite useful and very well explained..., it has helped me to understand things that I was doing without being very clear why they were happening, and that I will now apply to improve my poor newbie textures..., thanks and regards.

[@Gamer4167-]

Thanks a lot dude. You saved my life

[@SVLabs3dArt]

Thank you so much for the information. I am a 3ds max user and I use 'Rescale Elements' in UV Unwrap modifier a lot. It is one of the very helpful tools in max LOL. Now, I am a little upset that Unreal Editor does not have any texel density checker tool. It would have been very useful if there were any tool in UE4/5. If you come across any information on it, please do share. Thanks again :)

[@DemonicBloke]

Blender Steps: Apply all transforms 05:00 , Average Island Scale and Pack Islands 09:35 Multiselect objects 12:07 | Resolution Explanation 12:30

[@iCamSkiEz]

Thanks so much Emiel!!

[@jahandarwerewolf8480]

Thank you very much for this wonderful amazing tutorial!!!!

[@Bee-KL]

Although I in general really like your videos, this one leaves me with mixed motions. What you do tell, is enough and true for personal projects, maybe even if the project is done in a game engine, and you know what you have to compare the objects to. But when it comes to a lot of client work, it doesn't work that way, and important information is missing in your video. 3:00 you don't have to worry about TD anymore ... Well, wouldn't it be nice if it really was that easy?! Although averaging the UVs gives us an even TD on that particular model or even multiple models together, it does nothing in regard to a specific TD the customer orders. 13:00 resolution is flexible these days ... kind of true, when it comes to personal projects or team projects without strict rules. But it is a whole different story when you work on projects with strict client requirements, which is really common for freelancers like me. First, you often don't get the rest of the project at all, and lots of those projects are NOT done in a common game engine, so you have nothing to compare your single object to. And second, typically it works different in projects like that anyway, because in general the contract tells you exactly that you have to do a specific TD for different objects, e.g. assetA needs to have the TD 512 and assetB needs to be in TD 376 while assetC needs to have TD 650, and you have to do them all in ONE map where the textures for the three assets are merged correctly regarding the required and different TD. And believe me, requirements likes that are still really common. Only averaging the UVs gets you nowhere when you have to fulfill requirements like that. I can't say anything about Maya and 3DS Max, I haven't touched them since I switched to Blender years ago. But when it comes to Blender, and as awesome as Blender is as a modelling app IMHO, still not having a native tool to set the TD really is a drawback. The game changer for me was the addon Texel Density Checker by Ivan Vostrikov, which I discovered a few years back. With that awesome free addon you can set any TD, for all the UVs of your model or for specific islands. Nowadays, I use the paid addon ZEN UV, which has lots of useful functionality for UV editing, and comes with a TD tool as well. But not worrying about TD anymore? Sorry, but that just isn't true for a lot of professionals. We have to "worry" about the TD all the time to meet the requirements in our contracts. But, at least for blender users, that worry goes away by using the tools I mentioned above.

[@frankbergmann7890]

I couldn't put it better!

[@maniacb0y]

I work as a Technical Art Director and can confirm that some companies use variable texel density depending on the needs and visual importance. This is common in props specially when small, and not so comon in architectural assets. Not exacly as a rule of thumb, but details as screws, writings, dials, and some decals (whenever they are visually important) can have 25-50% more texel than the main body, while things that are rarely seen, or they have no visual improtance can go the other direction. This is also a way to save texture memory when you have repetitive or simple surfaces that can go with flatter materials, but have some very noticeable small details on them. Per example, why wasting texel when it's a flat gray surface with four screws? That being said, you need to be sure to use it whenever is possible without breaking the ilusion of a uniform texel density but can work miracles in saving texture space and texture sizes. It requires experience tho. Not to mention is very common to use different resolutions for the different maps of the same texture set.

[@FastTrackTutorials]

Hi there. thank you for the comments. I do understand what you are saying and this is also why i often in the video specified that on professional projects you have guide lines to follow. The techniques mentioned in this Video are just some simple techniques to get started and not an in-depth video on texel density. (this is why i recommended that document at the end) I personally used these on proffecional games without much issue but i can understand that every project is different. Also about the "not needing to worry about texel density" this was an incorrect comment yet. it is something i did not think about saying while recording this video as i do not read from a script but speak out of my head. I will try and fix this using YT Editor

[@wraithe5367]

when u say TD 512, TD 376, TD 650, what does it mean exactly Resolution? or the amount of pixels its gonna get under a specific resolution?

[@FastTrackTutorials]

@@wraithe5367 in the video when i say 1024 or 512 etc i often refer to the resolution of your texture. as default texture resolutions are often 512x512 - 1024x1024 etc

[@PaburoVIII]

thanks for this video I think is very usefull I am doing that technic of 3ds max in my newest prop :)

[@selimthetensai9381]

Thanks for the insight Emiel. I actually bought your game asset creation tutorial.(Gas station one). I am wondering if this kind of large -hero- assets also have 10,24 rule in FPS projects(or you don't normally worry about it since you can use 4K textures for hero assets?) You also mentioned that at some point artists downscale the texture, so let's say in an FPS game, can the game studio determine a different specific texel density like 8,00 or 7,36 in the game? Or it wouldn't be enough for FPS games? (Because i thought -for example- in horror themed, relatively dark environments, player may not examine much as to what's going on in the environment visually, so i thought maybe the resolution wouldn't matter much and the models can be textured with smaller texel densities. Do you think that's possible?)

[@stefandeak5975]

This may be a dumb question but.. When you maintain a specific texel density but end up scaling outside the base 1x1 uv area, how do you deal with baking then?

[@FastTrackTutorials]

you can not bake outside the 1:1 area. so often you would only go outside that with tileable materials at which point texel density becomes more flexible

[@Viktar_Harbunou]

Something strange happened with the link

[@bhoototiger3366]

thanks man

[@yenkule]

i cannot find your course on Udemy anymore are they removed?

[@FastTrackTutorials]

Hi there. Yes, we discontinued Udemy as of this year. however you can still get all our courses and more via artstation, gumroad or flippednormals

[@yenkule]

@@FastTrackTutorials ohh okk udmey was the only site giving your course in indian price as im from india. anyways your are a lagend sir thanks for teaching us

[@FastTrackTutorials]

@@yenkule Ah i see. the other websites should have payment options available however that should work in every country in the world :)