Hey guys, I was hoping someone could help me out with this.  I've started making textures for vehicles (specifically CVPI, Impala, Charger, and any realistic vehicle that comes out) and I've had a bit of an issue.  Whenever I add an existing logo, Such as the SAHP Badge, It just looks like crap.  The edges are completely jagged, and the text is barely readable.  Can anyone provide some guidance here? I'm using Photoshop CS6, and have access to everything from that suite.

A picture of what is happening please?

Here's an example.

Here's an example.  I'm not sure if there's something I need to do to the image ( meaning the badge), or perhaps that's as good as it gets.

Edited September 16, 201510 yr by mkm5r

What resolution is the texture in, and what are the mip-map levels (you can see this in OpenIV when you import the texture)?

Have you checked the textures in-game, with high/very high texture settings? Textures do look better in-game compared to the OpenIV model viewer. But there's only so much you can do really, since you have to resize the emblem so much to fit that small door frame, the decals will loose quality and they'll look pretty bad upclose. The vanilla textures look much better because the game applies hd decals over the base car texture. You can check out other community released textures and you'll see that all of them have the same problem.

You can check out other community released textures and you'll see that all of them have the same problem.

This really depends on the resolution and mip-map levels as I mentioned above.

For example, a 4096x4096 texture will look much better up-close than a standard 2048x2048 texture.

That's true, I was thinking about the ones using the standard template. Also, while I'm new to doing textures for GTA, I've noticed that the higher the resolution, the worst it looks on Normal texture settings. I have a weak graphics card and I have to play with Normal textures and at 1440x900, a 2048x2048 texture will look worse than the same one rescaled to 1600x1600. I can only assume going bigger will only make it worse. Sure, that's not a concern for the texture creator, especially if he can run the game at the highest settings and can take advantage of the 4k textures. I'm just saying going big does not work for everyone.

...I have to play with Normal textures and at 1440x900, a 2048x2048 texture will look worse than the same one rescaled to 1600x1600. I can only assume going bigger will only make it worse.

That's quite interesting actually and not something I've heard of or experienced myself. The picture I provided was one of my 4K textures shown in 1920x1080 resolution with the game maxed out, and as you can see it looks very crisp up close.

It seems odd to me that running the game in a lower resolution causes the high resolution textures to look worse than low resolution textures, however I suppose they do have to be down-scaled...

Yes, I was really surprised myself and I also think the textures are scaled down on Normal settings. I'll try to take some comparison photos but yesterday's patch messed up my game so I can't use trainers to take screenshots under identical conditions.

Can you tell me what the MipMaps do exactly? I never used them, I always leave it to "automatic" when adding new textures.

EDIT: So I just tried doing that on a new texture for a new model I'm working on and it didn't work. Rescaling the texture made it worse as expected. I don't have time right now to do it again for the Buffalo S (the model where I first noticed it), but I'll give it another try later and post the results.

Edited September 16, 201510 yr by BogdanM

Can you tell me what the MipMaps do exactly? I never used them, I always leave it to "automatic" when adding new textures.

They essentially control the "quality" of the image from distance.
See this:

What resolution is the texture in, and what are the mip-map levels (you can see this in OpenIV when you import the texture)?

The resolution is 1200x1200,  and one mipmap.  I know how I can change the resolution, but I'm not even sure what a mipmap is.

4096x4096

After increasing the resolution, the total image looks like this, and I think that's a lot better.

Edited September 16, 201510 yr by mkm5r
Added in-game photo.

That looks much better. Why on earth was the default size 1200x1200? It should be 2048x2048 minimum.

I was right the first time actually, I only forgot which image I had to resize, the image in psd format (so the layers are still separated and the text and numbers are resized properly) and not the png image which only makes a mess.

I've made a comparison between different settings and textures. I apologize for the dark image (didn't feel like driving back home and save the game twice to get daylight) and the slightly different perspectives, but the differences are still noticeable. I am 100% sure I didn't mix up the images, I separated them after each step.

1) 2048x2048 High textures settings

2) 2048x2048 Normal textures settings

3) 1600x1600 Normal textures settings (this is the 2048px texture resized to 1600px in psd format then saved as png)

4) 1600x1600 Normal textures settings (this is the 2048px png image resized to 1600px)

That looks much better. Why on earth was the default size 1200x1200? It should be 2048x2048 minimum.

That's the size the template was, and I didn't think to resize it.