Textures proxies (placeholders)

[Sam]

Hey Radiance,
Someone on another forum said

"thats one problem, all of the content has to be in memory. for preview things, you can use placeholder low res textures. but i dont think these engines will deliver such things. "

Its a good idea actually
Is it possible to have proxy for textures maps?
Example: you load a 2k by 2k texture in Octane then check a 1/2 - 1/4 or 1/8 setting (in the material)
And your texture show at 1/2 the size, 1/4 the size or 1/8 the size (and take less memory)

That would allow working with 2k textures for everything, and downsampling based on the camera angle the textures that are far away from the camera
(without needing to do it inside your 3D app, and since its based on camera angle, you can optimize a lot of things. Just like mip-map levels in video games)
Im just wondering if its possible to do it on the GPU...
Ive seen proxies already but in NUKE

[Sam]

If its not possible on GPU
You could use CPU when the user check a 1/2 - 1/4 - 1/8 box
And relink the re-sized texture on the fly. And when the user change the original 2k texture
You just reload the 2k texture, and re-size it on the fly also...

[Sam]

Oh.. and a proxy node could work also
Connect a 2k map to it, output a smaller map
(optional settings to choose the downsampling method, box, sharpen etc...)

[Chris]

I like this idea. Would be great for exterior shots