How to share texture maps?

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Hi guys. I'm wondering how my assets can optimize memory usage. How do I have 4-5 buildings share the same texture map set? And is it the same process with multiple props?

 

Thanks.

[Epic Lurker 108]

If you publish multiple assets using exactly the same textures, the loading screen mod will notice this and share the texture between assets. People who do not use that mod will not save memory. I believe this is the only thing you can do for texture sharing.

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

When you say "exactly the same textures." what does this mean in regards to the filenames?

[Epic Lurker 108]

I've read it is based on the content not filenames, but I can't find the place where I read that at the moment.

[Tim The Terrible 586]

1 hour ago, AmiPolizeiFunk said:

When you say "exactly the same textures." what does this mean in regards to the filenames?

I believe it compares the actual pictures and was called 'pixel matching', so the filename won't matter. The technique is similar to what YouTube uses to find copyrighted content.

[Ronyx69 2,413]

8 hours ago, Tim The Terrible said:

I believe it compares the actual pictures and was called 'pixel matching', so the filename won't matter. The technique is similar to what YouTube uses to find copyrighted content.

I'm not sure why you are calling it that, like it's some special technique, that would be just comparing the images.
YouTube definitely doesn't use that, any transformation and compression would make that technique useless.
Besides does YT even search for copyrighted images/video? I've only seen content ID used for music.

 

If you look into Sharing.GetTexture with ILSpy it seems like it uses checksum. I don't understand it fully though.

 

Anyway, the filenames are not preserved in the final asset anyway, the textures are just _MainTex _ACIMap _XYSMap.

So if the diffuse / ACI / XYS is the same, each one will be reused.

By this logic you could have 2 buildings with only the diffuse being different, and the ACI and XYS would still be reused.

If the entire material is the same (textures, colors, shader...) the entire material is reused. 

 

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Well that's pretty cool!  

[Epic Lurker 108]

I don't want to end this thread on a sad note, but please note that the loading screen mod and the test version have only 70,000 subscribers combined so for the majority of Cities Skylines players you won't save any memory at all. Or, in other words, don't compromise the design of whatever asset you're working on just to save some memory for a minority of all users.

 

[Judazzz 1,936]

Although I agree with the sentiment that you should always target the 'weakest link', I can't think of a single reason why anyone should not use the Loading Screen Mod.
The mod is stable, doesn't affected your city, the simulation, or anything in-game really (except the fully optional "Load xyz assets" and "Skip unused standard buildings" options), so afaik. it should be safely usable for anyone, even players with the most minimum of hardware. It actually benefits every player (endlessly faster, multi-core loading, lower resource usage, optional feature to not load vanilla assets that you'll never ever use, freeing up even more resources), and quite frankly it really should be part of the base game's logic imho.

[Avanya 2,605]

A way we can encourage more people to use the Loading Screen Mod is to mention it on assets which can benefit from the texture sharing. I mentioned it in the description and added it as a require item for my containers. Anyone detailing with them should really get the mod anyways.
 

Also everything Judazzz said - I have yet to hear of a downside to the mod, so the more widely used we can get it the better.

[Avanya 2,605]

A way we can encourage more people to use the Loading Screen Mod is to mention it on assets which can benefit from the texture sharing. I mentioned it in the description and added it as a require item for my containers. Anyone detailing with them should really get the mod anyways.
 

Also everything Judazzz said - I have yet to hear of a downside to the mod, so the more widely used we can get it the better.

[Turjan 1,048]

23 hours ago, Epic Lurker said:

I don't want to end this thread on a sad note, but please note that the loading screen mod and the test version have only 70,000 subscribers combined so for the majority of Cities Skylines players you won't save any memory at all. Or, in other words, don't compromise the design of whatever asset you're working on just to save some memory for a minority of all users.

I'm going to be all selfish here, but I have only 16 GB of RAM, and the Loading Screen Mod lets me use more custom content than I would be able to do otherwise. On the flip side, I have to wait for the mod to work again after a game update, because I cannot load some cities anymore the vanilla way.

I guess it's not that important for people who mostly use RICO to build their cities, but if you work with themes, there's usually lots of memory savings potential from the mod.

[Turjan 1,048]

On 4/30/2017 at 1:12 PM, Judazzz said:

Although I agree with the sentiment that you should always target the 'weakest link', I can't think of a single reason why anyone should not use the Loading Screen Mod.

You know what my suspicion is? The name of the mod. I know "loading screen mods" for lots of games. Those usually replace the images you see during game load by some other questionable splash screens that reflect the author's taste. Which means that I had not looked at this mod for quite a long time because I thought it was purely cosmetic, which I'm probably not interested in. It was only when I read in some thread here on this board that I learned what kind of wonderful features this mod possesses. I certainly don't want to miss out on it nowadays.

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

It should be called MEMORY SAVING MOD.