Textures and Power of Two

Understand the power-of-two rule for clothing textures

Introduction

If you've already tried modding clothing or props before, you might have been told to make sure your textures follow the 'Power of 2' rule. Durty Cloth Tool recommends exact power-of-two dimensions for predictable GTA clothing texture handling, mipmaps, and optimization.

A power-of-two texture has a width and height that are each an exact power of two: 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, and so on. Being divisible by two or eight is not enough for this guidance. For example, 512 × 256 follows the rule, while 500 × 256 and 768 × 512 do not.

The image does not need to be square. 1024 × 128 and 512 × 256 are both valid. Choose the smallest size that keeps the item looking good; making every texture 2048 or 4096 wastes streaming memory without improving a small or distant item.

Textures should also contain appropriate mipmaps. Mipmaps are smaller copies used as the item moves farther from the camera; missing or poor mipmaps can cause shimmering and unnecessary texture work. Durty Cloth Tool can report non-power-of-two dimensions and missing mipmaps in the Cloth Analysis Report, and Optimizing Clothes can fix many straightforward cases. If changing the dimensions would distort the aspect ratio, resize the source image manually instead.

For more background, see this power-of-two texture article.