Oh Fugazi why so many discrete 2K black or white maps

WendyLuvsCatz

Will someone please explain it to me like I am a small child, why do these sets need so many totally black or white maps especially in the metallic channel?

Also why so big?

If they need to be more than a pixel then can they all use the same 2 (or 3 if totally grey) maps?

My poor Graphics card wants to know!

xyer0

How does it look when you delete them?

Hylas

I've seen this a few times, with a number of PAs. I hate this kind of thing. Poor workmanship.

(I assume that it's the texturing program automatically generating all these maps, and the PA not double-checking and optimising. I could be wrong, I don't texture myself.)

felis

I see this practice regularly, that there are redundant textures.

Also textures with just one color, that could have been handled by setting the colour value, or slider value where relevant.

Pretty sure it comes from the program the PA uses to generate the textures, that just spit out textures for all available channels, and the PA will just include everything in the product/packet.

Hylas

see also: skins with separate diffuse and SSS maps, except they're both the exact same map

barbult

A good reason not to purchase from that vendor. What a waste.

WendyLuvsCatz

xyer0 said:

How does it look when you delete them?

rather difficult to do when so many and some actually are not plain black or white, not going through every item and every surface

reducing the plain ones to 1 pixel I saw no change except 1000MB less VRAM

LeatherGryphon

That seems to be something that DAZ QC should be checking or at least recommending before putting it in their catalog.  Should I laugh?

Artini

Great find, Wendy. I have noticed such maps, but have had no idea that simplifying them

reduce so much VRAM usage on graphics card during a render.

 

xyer0

WendyLuvsCatz said:

xyer0 said:

How does it look when you delete them?

rather difficult to do when so many and some actually are not plain black or white, not going through every item and every surface

reducing the plain ones to 1 pixel I saw no change except 1000MB less VRAM

Thanks for the A/B, Wendy. I see no difference, but the set looks nice. 

Diomede

Thanks for the notice, Wendy.

I like many of the vendor's products so I am taking this as a tip for more efficient usage.  Something to check when I need to free some VRAM.

tsroemi

Diomede said:

Thanks for the notice, Wendy.

I like many of the vendor's products so I am taking this as a tip for more efficient usage.  Something to check when I need to free some VRAM.

Same here, great that you spotted this! 

WendyLuvsCatz

to reduce them I sorted by size under detail in explorer

then view as large icons and drag each one into an image editor

then can see if all black/white/grey for certain

(I used MSpaint)

resize to 1 pixel and save, repeat

took me 10 minutes but there may be quicker ways,

scene optimiser cannot discriminate visually so not much use here

Blando Calrissian

Artini said:

Great find, Wendy. I have noticed such maps, but have had no idea that simplifying them

reduce so much VRAM usage on graphics card during a render.

 

Agreed! I will have to consider this when looking at some of my other resource HEAVY sets (PAs, you know who you are!) And now I'll probably have to buy a bigger hard drive to save my own "alternate textures" for those sets, oh no twists own arm this is terrible. :-)

Gordig

LeatherGryphon said:

That seems to be something that DAZ QC should be checking or at least recommending before putting it in their catalog.  Should I laugh?

We've been told that that's outside of QC's purview; they just check to see if the product functions, not whether it's been optimized in any way.

Havos

Gordig said:

LeatherGryphon said:

That seems to be something that DAZ QC should be checking or at least recommending before putting it in their catalog.  Should I laugh?

We've been told that that's outside of QC's purview; they just check to see if the product functions, not whether it's been optimized in any way.

I remember a product that was basically a can of spray paint that needed millions of polys for the model, and not surprisingly a number of people complained. No doubt QC do not need to check the poly count either. In this case I seem to recall Richard mentioning that the relevant PA "had been talked to" to ensure this did not happen again.

WendyLuvsCatz

video proved it, rendered an hour faster under 4 instead of over 5 hours

(I meant to do a wider angle second go but that's only first 100 frames as I forgot I keyfarmed all the camera parameters, would not account for faster render time )

WendyLuvsCatz

Diomede said:

Thanks for the notice, Wendy.

I like many of the vendor's products so I am taking this as a tip for more efficient usage.  Something to check when I need to free some VRAM.

same, I just need to watch for product updates that my reduced maps don't get overwritten  

Quasar

Are the maps in channels that don't have a color setting? If it has the option to change the color, I will match the color as close as I can to the map and then remove the map.

WendyLuvsCatz

Quasar said:

Are the maps in channels that don't have a color setting? If it has the option to change the color, I will match the color as close as I can to the map and then remove the map

yes that's logical but actually takes much longer than resizing the maps

barbult

LeatherGryphon said:

That seems to be something that DAZ QC should be checking or at least recommending before putting it in their catalog.  Should I laugh?

That's one of your better jokes. Definitely worth a good laugh!

memcneil70

Is there anyway for someone to determine this before a purchase? Or can you only take a chance and buy, test quick and go through the return process if needed?

PerttiA

Pure black metallicity maps are quite common.

I have used Irfanview to batch process them to smaller dimensions (file size on disk makes no difference)
Removing the map and replacing it with color black is an option, but that needs to be done for each material separately and the scene saved afterwards.
Replacing the map with a smaller one (with a same name and location) is completely invisible to the scene

ColinFrench

Gordig said:

LeatherGryphon said:

That seems to be something that DAZ QC should be checking or at least recommending before putting it in their catalog.  Should I laugh?

We've been told that that's outside of QC's purview; they just check to see if the product functions, not whether it's been optimized in any way.

Considering that once word gets around and people stop buying troublesome products from the Store, you'd think that *would* be of interest to Daz.

RL_Media

Probably use substance to do textures is my guess.

lou_harper

barbult said:

A good reason not to purchase from that vendor. What a waste.

I have a bunch of their products. They are well made, separate walls, floor, ceiling, and nice props. But I have to major gripes.

One is the lack of grouping. If you need to move a coffee table with a bunch of props on it, you have to find them all and group them first.

The second, bigger issue is the complete lack of instancing. It's a big deal with some of the products that have repeating elements. Using Instancify on them reduced poly count by 60% or more many times.

barbult

lou_harper said:

barbult said:

A good reason not to purchase from that vendor. What a waste.

I have a bunch of their products. They are well made, separate walls, floor, ceiling, and nice props. But I have to major gripes.

One is the lack of grouping. If you need to move a coffee table with a bunch of props on it, you have to find them all and group them first.

The second, bigger issue is the complete lack of instancing. It's a big deal with some of the products that have repeating elements. Using Instancify on them reduced poly count by 60% or more many times.

I guess that kind of frustration would be another reason to avoid them then. Why should we have to rework a product just to be able to use it on our computers? Have you noticed how many times Totte (Code 66) comes along with tools to overcome obstacles like this? Instancify is one of those useful tools. I have a lot of his tool products.

WendyLuvsCatz

they make good looking sets, it's just such a shame the maps are managed so poorly

hence my thread

I will still buy them but I also know there will be a bit of work involved making them useable for my purposes

the forum is all we have for feedback on products since the store does not have customer reviews

Korpin.Sulat

PerttiA said:

Pure black metallicity maps are quite common.

I have used Irfanview to batch process them to smaller dimensions (file size on disk makes no difference)
Removing the map and replacing it with color black is an option, but that needs to be done for each material separately and the scene saved afterwards.
Replacing the map with a smaller one (with a same name and location) is completely invisible to the scene

Oh my god, I honetly thought after over twenty years of using irfanview that I was one of five people in the world left who'd ever heard of it We now represent 40% of the user base.  Simple, not cloud-connected, works better without a mouse most of the time. Gem of a program!

fixmypcmike

marcus.ames said:

PerttiA said:

Pure black metallicity maps are quite common.

I have used Irfanview to batch process them to smaller dimensions (file size on disk makes no difference)
Removing the map and replacing it with color black is an option, but that needs to be done for each material separately and the scene saved afterwards.
Replacing the map with a smaller one (with a same name and location) is completely invisible to the scene

Oh my god, I honetly thought after over twenty years of using irfanview that I was one of five people in the world left who'd ever heard of it We now represent 40% of the user base.  Simple, not cloud-connected, works better without a mouse most of the time. Gem of a program!

I guess I'm number 3.  Still my first choice for image manipulation.

Totte

barbult said:

lou_harper said:

barbult said:

A good reason not to purchase from that vendor. What a waste.

I have a bunch of their products. They are well made, separate walls, floor, ceiling, and nice props. But I have to major gripes.

One is the lack of grouping. If you need to move a coffee table with a bunch of props on it, you have to find them all and group them first.

The second, bigger issue is the complete lack of instancing. It's a big deal with some of the products that have repeating elements. Using Instancify on them reduced poly count by 60% or more many times.

I guess that kind of frustration would be another reason to avoid them then. Why should we have to rework a product just to be able to use it on our computers? Have you noticed how many times Totte (Code 66) comes along with tools to overcome obstacles like this? Instancify is one of those useful tools. I have a lot of his tool products.

Two people pointed be to this thread, I'll take a look, looks like something that could be useful both for PAs and users.