Sampling or Fast Mip Map ?

scottidog2

Carrara 8.5 introduced "Fast Mip Map".
So should I change all my Texture Filtering to "Fast Mip Map" from the previous "Sampling"?
I am fine-tuning the Skin shaders for both V4 and M4.
Any advice regarding this would be much appreciated.

WendyLuvsCatz

you get a default choice?
I find it uses mip map by default making my beta projects annoyingly in need of fixing if I use 8.1
esp when the serial runs out.
just as annoying manually changing it to sampling everytime but quicker than having to reload the texture in 8.1 if you don't.

scottidog2

I am using Carrara 8.5 (Build 172 ) on a Mac.
I loaded V4 Elite Lana Textures for Carrara and the Filtering there is set to "Sampling".
When I load the default V4 figure from the browser, the Filtering there is set to "Fast Mip Map".
So I'm thinking I should change everything to "Fast Mip Map" as thats the new standard for Carrara.

3DAGE

HI LondonMarlo :)

The difference is that when you load the figure from the browser,. Carrara loads and converts the "Poser or Daz Studio" shaders,. to create a carrara shader,... and the new default setting for images in the beta,. is fast mip-map.

When you load a saved Carrara shader,. then Carrara only loads the shader and all it's saved settings, so it doesn't change the "Sampling" to fast Mip-map, or any other settings of the shader.

The advantage of mip-Map is that it calculates slightly faster than sampling, based on the distance from the camera.
it should also reduce "sparkle" on textures, but this also depends on the Bump/normal map setting in the shader, and the anti-alias settings in the renderer.

I wouldn't start changing your shaders to fast Mip-Map,. for the reasons that Wendy mentioned of backward compaibility, since older versions don;t have Fast mip map, and so, can't support your New shaders.

You could create "Duplicates" of shaders, (one with sampling , one with mip map), saved in different folders of your browser,. but I think that's a lot of hassle for something you don't really need to do.

Hope it helps :)

scottidog2

Thank You 3DAGE. Backward compatibility is not an issue for me since I use the latest Beta for all my renders and Fast Mip-Map seems to be the new "standard".
I'm going ahead and converting everything to Fast Mip-Map as it will be compatible with future versions of Carrara.

3DAGE

hi londonmarlo :)

Honestly, I wouldn't rush into making all my shaders into "Mip-map",. but I think the idea of making some shaders for figures which can coexist along with the "Sampling" version of your shaders, is the best of both worlds right now.

(IMO) the Mip-map feature, should be a "Choice" and not the "Default",.. Why? because it['s effected by camera distance, and in my experimenting, I can get visible seam lines, as the maps are being adjusted, even at 20 - 30 ft away from the figure.

That issue may be resolved at some point, since we're talking about a "Beta" version,.. ..also,. although the beta is very stable,. it's really not a good idea to commit your work to it, .. anything you're working on, should be done in the production version, (8.1.1.12) which won't change. ...the beta can change,. and can change in a way which may effect your ability to complete your work.

:)

scottidog2

3DAGE, I see what you mean. You do make a valid point. I presume a new version of Carrara will be released this month. I'll wait and see what happens.