The Scale of Video Game Textures

[Fisha695]

Was sitting here looking at one of those square napkins that most people use and something dawned on me. First off here are the kind of Napkins I'm talking about.

Game texture sizes for the most part over the past 10-12 years evolved like this.

256x256 (standard around the year 2000)
512x512
1024x1024
2048x2048 (current standard for Hi-Rez)

If you have some of these napkins go grab a handful.

For this experiment 1 folded napkin = 256x256

Unfold that one napkin all the way and it should look like the one in this picture.

That = 512x512

Now take 3 more unfolded napkins and make a square 2 unfolded wide by 2 unfolded high. (4 unfolded napkins total)
That = 1024x1024

Now take 12 more unfolded napkins and lay them out in a square 4 high by 4 wide (16 unfolded napkins total)
That = 2048x2048.

Using those sizes for racing game templates over the years we've all (well at least I think we've all) become accustomed to it just being the next size bigger template/texture. However when you physically lay it out like that you really see just how much of a difference there is from what was the standard 10-12 years ago to what is the standard now.


(yes I'm that bored)

 

[Mystical]

Yeah game textures have come a long way. Even with the consoles we have today the modeling side is still pretty low poly for the most part. It's all displacement mapping and bump mapping to give the models the illusion they have a higher poly count. Textures is really where these days pc and console game shine. I have a feeling the next consoles will lean on the side of higher poly count and actual 3D detail for in-game rendering in the next few years.

Also ...

If that was at a restaurant I wonder what everyone around you was thinking as you took pictures of napkins on the table XD

Don't worry though I'm just as strange with my camera. I walk around Seattle taking pictures of concrete, metal, bricks, and other surfaces for my texture collection and I bet people think I don't know how to use a camera properly haha

 

[Fisha695]

They were just random pictures that I grabbed off of Google l0l. I was thinking about actually laying each step out and taking pictures but I didn't feel like taking that much time haha.