I think what stew meant when he said mirrored textures only ties in with resource budgets and the limitations we're under in that regard with the old engine.
A mirrored texture means higher texel density on that character, and more texel density means you can lower the actual texture size. For models like the intern, or other enemy NPC's, a mirrored texture is good because you can hardly tell that it's mirrored during normal play and having a smaller texture being called on so many guys saves on a lot of performance. I've done this with practically all the models and you can hardly tell (Abe for example has a mirrored texture except on his face and i don't think anyone caught that yet.)
For Munch however, a larger unique texture is preferable mainly because he's a focal point and gets a lot of screen time, and also because you can use a bigger texture (as he's the only one on screen) which means you don't sacrifice texel density. As with abe though, I actually toyed with the idea of only using unique texture areas for the areas of the model where there is unique model detail (head), but in the end i had so much free UV space thanks to uniquely unwrapping his head and how much odd space it took up on the map, that i could comfortably fit the rest in and have him 100% unique.
/tech mode off
Glad you dudes like the new model anyways, i'm happiest with him so far as well. And yeah, i dropped the wall-eyed look. It's not a good look.
Last edited by tda; 09-23-2011 at 01:43 PM..
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the textures in particular look greatly improved, and I never noticed before the old Munch model had intersecting geometry at the corners of his mouth! Even so, didn't JAW say recently that the Munch engine could only use mirrored textures? Because those (nice) new scratches on Munch's skin don't look mirrored to me?
i guess its a limitation with having the same also be SD compatible. its just annoying in the middle of a gears cut scene and it jumps into SD video for more complex things / background loading.
