by electroglyph » Tue Dec 25, 2007 9:16 am
From what I have been told computers are binary so the best size for a texture is 2 to some power. For example 1,4,16,64,128,256,512,1024,2048,4096 are all usable. The smaller numbers lack detail while the larger numbers can criple your processor. Using even sizes makes your computer processor run an even number of calculations. Using another size causes half steps in the calculation and supposedly slows things down when rendering.
If you can get your avitar close to an object and see the individual square pixels then you probably need a larger texture or tiled mapping on your object. Sometimes you have to have big textures just to make things look realistic.
Avoid the Flintstone effect! Remember the old cartoons where they ran by the same tree and fireplug 50 times. If you put the same crack in your texture and can see it three or four times down the wall it ruins the realism of the scene. It's better to make a 512 square texture with little detail and add decals in places.