MayaMan Texture Options

These options control various aspects of how MayaMan uses and converts textures.

Texture Map Generation

Resize Method

Any textures whose resolution is not an exact power of two will be resized during the conversion process. Textures can be resized 'up' (next higher power of two), 'down' (next lower power of two) or 'round' (nearest power of two).

Pattern

Textures are normally resampled into a multi-resolution image pyramid for most efficient access. This can be done in different ways for speed/size tradeoffs. 'Single' leaves the image as a single resolution. 'Diagonal' produces a series of images, each half the resolution of the higher level, which results in a texture file approximately 1/3 larger than the original. 'All' produces a map containing all combinations of resized images, resulting in a file 4 times larger than the original, but is useful for situations where the s/t coordinate dimensions are greatly different. 'Diagonal' is the best general compromise.

Texture Map Sampling

Variance

This parameter controls the maximum amount of variance between the texture sample returned and the actual texture value at that point.

Samples

Controls the number of samples taken for each texture lookup. Multiple samples are taken from the area defined by the width parameters specified in the texture() lookup call. A single sample is usually sufficient.

Lerp

This option enables the linear interpolation of texture values between different resolution levels.

Filter

These are the default filter used when sampling the textures. Note, the default filter for displacement is gaussian as it is supported by all renderers but PRman users will probably want to use radial-bspline. These can be overriden on a per-texture basis as follows:

Add integer attributes to the file node with the following names:

        MayaManFilter
        MayaManDispFilter

Possible values are:

        0 = use default as set in globals
        1 = gaussian
        2 = box
        3 = disk
        4 = radial-bspline

You don't have to add both of them... just the ones that applies to your usage. Be careful to add it to the filenode, maya can be a bit tricky when adding attributes in that it doesn't always add them to the node shown in the attribute editor.

Texture File Options

Reuse Textures

When this option is on, the textures converted into the texture cache directory will be reused for subsequent renders if the original texture file has not changed. If the timestamp on the original file is more recent than the one in the texture cache, it will be reconverted.

This setting also effects map baking for fur.

Delete Single Maps After Use

When this option is on, converted texture maps will be deleted after use. Sequence maps will not be deleted (see below).

Delete Sequence Maps After Use

This option tells MayaMan to delete animated sequences of texture maps that it has converted.

Half-Size for Preview

When this option is enabled, textures will be scaled down to half resolution when doing preview renders.

Texture Memory Allocation

Use this option to override the default amount of memory allocated by the renderer for texture memory storage. Higher values can make texture lookups faster, but of course at a higher memory expense.

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