Hi Pablo
There are a lot of things in your post that are speculative. For the sake of conversation I would just point a few things out.
QuoteUV-mapped images are easy to use because they can easily be viewed in image viewers, processed in PhotoShop and manipulated every way that flat images are used. A PTEX collection of images won't make any sense to be viewed any way but on the surface of a 3D model and few applications know what to do with them.
This is actually one of my complaints.
Why are you trying to view 3D in 2D software? It makes no sense to me. In every single way, painting and texturing a 3D object in a program like MARI or Mudbox (among others) is superior to photoshop. I rarely use Photoshop anymore for 3D, except for doing work on a finished 2d Render image. (And for for creating texture maps to paint with in a 3D app.)
Quoteand few applications know what to do with them
Well, not as few as last year, but yes. Thus my OP.
If I stayed in an autodesk workflow I would not have to worry, Or if I used some of the other major 3D apps. The problem is that I have to use a number of programs including TG, which as you say, are not there yet.
QuoteI can understand why it is not more popular than it is.
It is extremely popular among those who are using it. And among those who use software that makes use of it. Just look on- line.
QuoteWhile this method is very efficient, it is more compute intensive and I would venture to guess that it would be more difficult to implement with today's GPUs for shading objects using this method in real time. I am sure the data structures and access methods are more complex than what is used in the UV system. GPU shading is essential in the real time previsualization in our 3D applications and they may not be able to handle PTEX which involves mapping images to polygons rather than vertices to rectangular images as most real time shading does. It might require some improvements to OpenGL and DirectX to make them able to use these data structures.
I dont know about all the stuff you brought up here. But I can tell you my Desktop is from late 2009, and I haven't had any problem using PTEX in the few experiments I have done. I know that when using Mudbox, GPU is very important and I recently upgraded. But that just goes back to my earlier point... If 3D work requires hardware/software created for 3D, why are people trying to do 3D work with Hard/soft created for 2D work?
If at any point you were referring to Game making, I cant comment on that. I don't know anything about making video games other than that, everything must be optimized to have a smaller foot print. So for that PTEX may or may not be good. But for Film TV and Print, I think there is nothing better.
Whatever issues arise over system resources related to PTEX are made up for by the hours, days and weeks, saved by not having to UV map... In terms of labor. And thats not counting the work that must be doe for UVs after they are created created...
Recently you and I had a conversation about animation. That was about MOCAP. But if you know about animation than you know about rigging and weighting. Now I am Speculating a little, but I propose that the process of Rigging and weighting in PTEX is also superior to the process Of the same with UVs.
It is something to look into.
Quotein PTEX it probably doesn't have the wasted image space that is inherent in UV mapping.
As far as I have seen there is no waste whatsoever. The UV tile is filled corner to corner with the geo quads. And the resolution (per object) is whatever you want it to be.
If you set a resolution equal to 4000*4000, it will be a heavier lift than a 1000*1000 resolution, so it is also with UV's. Except by now you have saved countless hours by not having had to make UVs.
QuotePTEX seems like it could support a uniform resolution over the whole surface of an object.
There is nothing seemingly about it. There is no waste, no stretching, no constraining, no seams, no time wasted making UVs, no nothing that comes with UVs.
Just think of the Vector Displacement maps for terragen thread. A lot of the conversation there was about UV issues (mostly stretching). I am very curious about how a vector would look in TG if it was PTX based and not UV... I think it would be quite extraordinary. I think it would look perfect.
But now Im just speculating again too... It is fun though