.w3d file texture size limits

[SIRMANTHEDMAN]

Hello,
I am wondering why I am having trouble exporting large texture sizes from 3d
max in a .w3d file. I end up with "noise" instead of the actual texture.

What I'm doing is this:
- I'm rendering a 3d panorama using the panorama utility in 3d max at the
highest rendering.
- I have 3 options to save from there: cylindrical, spherical and qtvr
(there's no cubic option unfortunately, unless I'm missing something here...)
- I've saved all of them in various formats.
- I then create sphere, drag and drop the rendered panorama texture into the
sphere, create a camera and export to .w3d
- To keep the same resolution, I make sure it is at "no limits" when
exporting. If I choose 512, it looks like crap quite frankly. I'm trying to
make it look as good as the qtvr version, which retains incredible sharpness.

For some reason, if I have the file size over 1536X768, shockwave doesn't like
it. And yet, I need as high a texture possible to allow "good looking"
real-time panoramas.
The qtvr version works amazing in Director...but there is a disctinct lack of
control and you have to make the hotspots in another program. I want to do it
all in director.
1024X512 - works
1536X768 - works
2048X1024 - doesn't work, goes noisy
3072X1536 - Looks the best, but doesn't work, goes noisy
So why would this be?
Surely there must be a way to export higher res textures in .w3d format..?

Here is the actual link to a screen shot of the "noise":

[url]http://s92.photobucket.com/albums/l37/dragonspoop/?action=view&current=Shockwave[/url]
-3d-problems-1.jpg&refPage=&imgAnch=imgAnch1

Any help would be very much appreciated! Thank you...

[duckets]

Is that screenshot from max's export preview? If so, try opening the actual w3d
- I think the problem is just in the export window, and not in the actual w3d.

I just tested with a 2048x1024 texture, I saw the same 'noise' as you in max's
preview window, but when opening the w3d in director it looked fine.

hope this helps,

- Ben

[duckets]

couple more points:

* I tried 4096x2048, also had noise in the max preview, but displayed fine in
the resulting w3d.

* non power-of-two sized textures will be automatically resized to the nearest
power of two texture (might always be downwards actually), so it's not worth
bothering with sizes like 1536X768 or 3072X1536, because they won't actually be
displayed at that resolution anyway.

- Ben

[duckets]

Sorry, one more thought

If you want to generate the images for the 6 sides of a cubic VR, just create
a camera and adjust its FOV to 90 degrees, place it in the centre of your
scene, and use the standard render option to render a square image (power of
two dimensions, remember) in each of the 6 directions. Make sure 'angle snap'
is on, and just rotate your cam to get each of the views.

- Ben

[SIRMANTHEDMAN]

Hi :)
Thank you for taking the time to help me out! It's been very frusterating, to
say the least....
Fantastic advice Ben and I will try it right now, to see if it works! I' will
post again soon to let you know..

As for the cube part, do you know how to use the Reflect/Refract map option to
render out cube panoramas? I know it exists, but am having trouble using
it...mainly, what object I am supposed to "select" when it tells me to pick an
object.
Basically, I just want a camera in the 3d room and have it automatically
generate the 6 graphics of the room for me. Just not sure how to have it
generate those cube maps... Do I select the "camera," a "wall"..?

[Aldo Hoeben]

You might also want to have a look at my SPi-V engine, a Shockwave3d
based panorama viewer. It reads normal images, as opposed to a w3d model
with images wrapped to it, and it accepts arbitrary image sizes. The
images are chopped up into 'powers of 2' chunks before they are
displayed, to ensure maximum image quality.

[url]www.fieldofview.com/spv[/url]
and
[url]www.fieldofview.com/spv-gallery[/url]

The SPi-V movie can be embedded into Director projects as an LDM.
Documentation is available here:

[url]www.fieldofview.com/spv-dev/docs[/url]

'do

[duckets]

Not sure how to do it automatically, never tried it. But it's pretty simple to
do it manually using the method I described - that's how I've always done it.
(camera with FOV 90 degrees, render square images, and manually turn the camera
to each of the 6 sides).

- Ben