tileable vs infinite

[matthias.buehler]

Hi,

I'm not (yet) an allegorithmic customer, but informed myself about the products.

One question I found no answer to yet though:

Is it possible to create 'infinite' textures that are not tileable ? As an example, many 3d packages have 2d and 3d noise generators that just define mathematical representations that may or may not tile ( depending on the user's setup ). But as I understand, 'substances' are always tileable ?

If so, why is that ? If we generate textures procedurally, what's the reason to enforce them to be tileable ?

One example is a grass texture.. Let's say I want to create a high quality grass texture that 'never' repeats .. Is this possible with substances ?

Any input welcome.

Matt

[VataRaven]

Even seamless textures repeat, it's just a matter of making them look like they're not repeating. But the larger the resolution of the texture, the less the pattern will repeat itself.

In general, the same rules apply to Substances with any other method of texture making.

The advance of Substances is how tiny the files are, and being able to easily edit the textures without having to redo them.

[matthias.buehler]

hi ..

that surely makes sense .. but will creating e.g. 16k or 32k substances be efficient in substance designer ?

matt

[Wes McDermott]

hi ..

that surely makes sense .. but will creating e.g. 16k or 32k substances be efficient in substance designer ?

matt

Hi Matt,

Are you talking about 16 and 32K as in resolution or bit depth? In terms of resolution, 16 and 32K will not be efficient.

Cheers,

Wes

[Cyrille Damez]

Such high resolutions won't even be possible. Substance Designer is currently limited to 4k when using the GPU engine and 2k with the CPU engine.

[matthias.buehler]

hi ..

Sad but true.

Yes, I meant resolutions, not bit depth.
I hoped that I finally can produce 8k textures procedurally, which are high quality enough for visualizations / film work.

Is there a technical reason for this ? On GPUs, this is understandable (buffer sizes, ..), but on standard CPUs ?
I mean since the textures are generated procedurally, there should be no limitation to the resolution. e.g. there are none with traditional fractal terrain generators.

Thanks for the inputs so far !

matt

[Cyrille Damez]

Yes, there is a technical reason for this. Without going into too much details, it has to do with the fact that we do some optimized computations in fixed point precision in 32 bit integers in SSE registers and sometimes there is not enough space in there to address images larger than 2kx2k .

[matthias.buehler]

there's always a reason.

please keep working on this.. I'm sure there's tons of people that would like to create some hi-res textures procedurally.

for me, this is THE reason why I won't invest in SD for now.

thanks for the answers !

matt

[VataRaven]

...Why the hell do you even need a 16k or 32k resolution made for textures?

Computers today can barely handle 4k textures, and 4k TV are just now becoming a thing. And they won't be a standard like 10-15 years from now. And you'll be pushing it with 8k textures.

And not to forget, your computer will be working on overload just to render such things.

How about instead of saying "well, screw this program. Why should I invest in it when it can't handle textures that computers today can't even handle?"

Look at what the program can do.

Also, you do KNOW textures made with SD allow you to change the resolution on the fly? You can easily change a 512 to 4096. You seriously going to say, "screw this" when a program like that is around? You won't get that from any other program on the market.

[matthias.buehler]

hi ..

I'm working a lot with offline rendering (photorealistic), not realtime rendering (game engines). In this field, 8K and higher are not uncommon.

Yes, 16k and 32k textures are still extreme, but they are used in production and there's tools that can handle them in realtime:
(videos from 2010 !)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_Geqfp0ZsU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S1ojsbRcqw

I was just hoping I could finally procedurally create high quality textures, but sadly, SD is not yet there. I'm sure it'll get there soon-ish, so I'll return then.

[mario.baldi]

If you work in VFX, sometimes you need extreme resolutions (think about giant characters like Godzilla, where the director may ask at any moment to make a close-up).
Maybe 16K or 32K is not the solution (I mean using one single image), but UDIM or PTex will do the job too.
Both are in the Substance Painter roadmap, I hope they will be included in Designer too.

[VataRaven]

You'll be lucky if a game engine even allows to go higher then 4k

UNreal allows for 4k, but not Unity

FYI, so you know. WHEN substance can finally render at your insane resolution needs...you don't have to even redo the texture to get them at that resolution, it'll still be on the fly with a simple click of a button

[mario.baldi]

I think Matthias stated quite clearly that he would like to use SD for offline renderers (no game engines).
Both of you are right when saying that SD is an amazing tool for games texturing

[robin_ball2002@yahoo.co.uk]

I would also like the option to render huge maps like 16k or even 32k. I'm working on huge objects that will be broken up into smaller tiles. While I can and probably will work by cutting them up beforehand, it would be a useful option to be able to render out a huge texture. Even if it renders offline and takes a long time. There are certain downsides to making them all individually. Seams for example.

[Wes McDermott]

I would also like the option to render huge maps like 16k or even 32k. I'm working on huge objects that will be broken up into smaller tiles. While I can and probably will work by cutting them up beforehand, it would be a useful option to be able to render out a huge texture. Even if it renders offline and takes a long time. There are certain downsides to making them all individually. Seams for example.

Hello,

We are looking to support much higher resolutions in the future especially for non-game application. We have 8K on the roadmap, but we don't have anything to report beyond 8K at this time. However, we are definitely aware of the needs.

Cheers,

Wes