Texture File Format
For 3Delight for Maya to render efficiently with texture maps, texture file must be prepared and saved in a certain format. That format is a standard TIFF file augmented with mipmaps. This preparation can be either automatic or done manually.
Although the 3Delight texture format is standard TIFF augmented with mipmaps, some applications are not able to read it properly because the data is stored in tiles and not scanlines (this is a performance feature).
Automatic Preparation through the Hypershade shading network
If an object is shaded using an Hypershade shading network that uses a texture file (any image file format via a node such as the File 2D texture node), 3Delight for Maya will automatically convert the texture to 3Delight’s efficient texture file format and then use this file for rendering. The automatic conversion is not done if the file is already prepared. It is detected as already prepared in the following two situations:
- The file extension is:
.tdl - The file extension is:
.tdl.tif
All the textures that are prepared using this automated process are cached in the location specified in 3Delight Data Locations. For subsequent renderings (of the same image, all the frames of an animation or even for other scenes or projects) 3Delight for Maya will re-use the prepared textures from the cache location. If any original texture is modified, it will be converted again to update the cached version. All this process is automated.
It is possible to prepare the texture file manually (and save it using a file name with the above extension) in order to avoid this automatic conversion – which could slow down the rendering process.
Manual Preparation of Texture Files
3Delight for Maya comes with a command line tool named tdlmake to prepare texture file for efficient rendering. The prepared texture file should be saved using a file name with the '.tdl' extension. You can also use the '.tdl.tif' extension instead if you want to keep the ability to open and view the texture using the tool of your choice (if it supports the TIFF image format with data stored in tiles). The prepared texture file can then be used directly in a Hypershade node such as the File 2D texture node. Here is a typical example of how to use the command line tool:
tdlmake -preview mytexture.jpg mytexture.tdl
Refer to section "3.3 Using the Texture Optimizer - tdlmake" in the 3Delight-UserManual.pdf for more details on the command line tool.
Important
Maya can not read TIFF file stored in tiles, only in scanlines. For this reason, it is necessary to use tdlmake with the '-preview' option so it will also insert an embedded thumbnail (stored in scanlines) at the begining of the file that Maya can read. This is useful for Maya to display a texture preview image.