Is there a maximum skin size for the skins you apply to a model in MED? or is there a *recommended* skin size? (IE you can do a 8192x8192 skin, but that large a skin might not be a wise idea?)

Ive been able to generate skin sizes of 2048x2048, 4096x4096, and 8192x8192, and they all seem to work fine. Granted when I make a model with a skin of 8192x8192, it takes the level editor a fair minute to load the game at runtime, but it otherwise appears to work.

I know that the level editor cant handle textures larger than 2048x2048 and a skin size of 8192x8192 is definelty larger than that. Even thoguh i *can* exceed 2048x2048 skin size, is it a wise idea? Are there maybe hidden side effects or problems that im missing at the moment?

depending on what models you use 512px (for really small objects even smaller textures are enough) to 2048px should work fine.

4096px is really big and I won't recommend to use them a lot. They might be nice for high detail terrains but you should be careful
with them since textures which are this big eat a lot of memory and make the game much slower.

8192px... that's a texture size I would never use. Simply because it's just overkill and memory waste.
(a 8192x8192px texture has the same size as 64 1024x1024px textures).

But if I will ever need a detailed texture like this I would use a smaller sized texture with decent detail mapping.

And the maximum texture resolution (I searced a bit) seems to be 4096px on DX9.
However, I'm not sure if this really is true.

Thank you for the response Kartoffel.

I can confirm what you said about 8192x8192, when i upped the skin size to that size, there was literally no improvement in detail or resolution over 4096x4096 - so it would seem 4096x4096 is the recommended maximum at the very least.

The reason im using such huge skins is because I am indeed making some very large terrains, and if i use, say, 2048x2048 skin size, the textures come out stretched and blurry. 4096x4096 is the smallest i can go and have the textures turn out decently.

What kind of model needs a minimum texture of 4096x4096px? You are not talking about complete houses or even large terrains or sth like that?

I am making very large scale terrain. I'm taking a height map image and converting it to terrain in 3DS Max, exporting it as .OBJ, importing it into MED and saving as MDL. Im creating the skin in MED and the terrain is a large enough model that if i use smaller than 4096x4096, the texture is then smaller than the model and so gets stretched out to cover the entire model. This results in the texture looking stretched and/or blurry at runtime.

On the other hand, you can have more than one skin on a model. I just dont know how to divide the skin mapping polys up and assign them to a given skin. Maybe i only need several 2048x2048 skins for one model instead of one big 4096x4096 skin?

Well then you would need four 2048² skins which results in the same amount of memory and all graphics cards should be able to handle 4096² textures.

There is a reason why you cannot change the UV layout of a terrain, simply because that is not how you texture it. You should use a multitexture effect/ shader instead and, depending on the shader, you probably only need let's say 4 256x256 textures (even one would be enough) and one blend map to make it look sharp.

yes, multitexture blending shader or ffe is the best, or alternatively you can divide it up, to use more terrain entities with a 2048x2048 skin for each.

but if the terrain is not high slope, you can import the heighmap image to MED and create a hmp terrain, which in theory rendered faster than a model.

Thank you all for all the responses.

I was using a shader before to put the textures on the terrain, and i still had the problem with the textures getting stretched - Until I went into MED and sized the UV mapping up to a given size (usually at least 4096x4096). Is there some way to program a shader so that it is not dependant on the UV mapping of the model?

As for not being able to split up the UV mesh - it CAN be done, i've done it before. You select part of the model and go to eidt->create group, when you generate the atlas mapping, youll have two groups of meshes instead of one single mesh. I just cant figure out how to assign the groups to different skins.

Usually you use a shader tiles the textures by simply modifying the uv information before reading the color from the texture.
For example: If you want to repeat the texture 5 times you have to multiply the texture coordinates by 5 within the shader (and set AddressU and V to Wrap).

However, there are enough terrain shaderes out there.
Have a look at the multi-texture terrain shader in the latest AUM.
It looks pretty good.

Yes, of course you can assign different faces to different skins (with "Set Skin") but this only holds on for models, not terrains.