Hello!
I have come to start a pretty deep discussion about this. Recently I had what people would call a big thonk. This thonk is about if you should put pixel textures or textures with no jagged lines onto your maps, objects, items etc.
Looking at it from a vanilla standpoint, it seems that pixel art textures are mostly used.
But when start to look at curated maps such as Arid and Polaris, it seems there is a mix with both.
Arid has pixelated holes on their guns, example being the AMR and the Kasov having a star on the grip with no jagged lines whatsoever. The recent Arid 2.0 update made the Zolash magazines, AR magazines and other items have no jagged lines, instead they are now straight by warping the UV maps around.
Same with Polaris, there are many graffitis scattered around the map meanwhile the electric generators have a warning sign with no jagged lines.
This begs the question, when should you use pixelated textures or high resolution textures? Where should you use them? How should you use them? What should be used more etc. etc.
whichever gives your creation the best look, makes it unique, and also the one that makes you happy!
It depends on what you’re making, but i think that looking for consistency is the best idea, for example if you’re making a mod for vanilla the textures for the objects and items should look simillar to the vanilla ones, and if you’re making a curated map you can use whatever textures you feel like, having a style is important.
I prefer to use pixel art, but for things like objects with 3d text generally pixel art style won’t be used. IMHO pixel art looks way better for unturned. I’d prefer if all of the foliage was sharply pixelated as well but I think that would be an unpopular decision.
example
The grass here as pixelated foliage looks better because it fits the feel of unturned better to me.
This is a topic that’s been back and forth in my mind as well. With 4.0 I wanted to steer away from pixelation, for example the character faces were smooth. In 3.0 I think low-resolution textures look nice with the smooth alpha cutoff like the blood splatters and grass. On the other hand I think the clothing items in 3.0 look better at lower resolutions than some of the newer high-res clothing mods.
Imo high res textures look good when they actually look low poly. Having (actual) texture or smooth curves/circles makes it look uggy in most cases.
I think smoothed/filtered textures make sense on things meant to look bit more organic, although I think biggest takeaway is not to go crazy with the texture size, I find that more often than not smaller texture size gives better result than overly big textures (which is exaggerated by most things being flat colored anyway).
You mentioned magazines specifically so I can elaborate on those. The one on the left has warped UVs that you mentioned while the right one uses texture to create the entirety of the curve and if you take a close look at it you will clearly see the jagged line, I think low-res left one (where you can clearly see each pixel) is more appealing than a texture trying to imitate a curve.
Whatever fits your style & vision best…
however, imo i think Unturned should progress in it’s visual style as human eye just can’t plesuarelly look at the same thing forever without any change, thus I choose textures without jagged lines.
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