skybox scale 16 or 4

I don't understand the 1/16th scale recommendation by Valve.

At 1/16th, I've run into a few problems:
a) microbrushes and defective brushes (some of this I could only have avoided by making time-consuming mdl's.)
b) inabilty to line up precisely enough to fool your eye (this is the real issue)
d) washed out looking textures

The detail in cs_italy is horrible because of it. The dusts are cartoonish.

Dust is done at 1/4 scale. And really, given how cheaply the skybox renders, it seems to make more sense, and to give a better result at scale of 4 instead. Or even at 1/8.

Lastly, once you've done a good job on terrain, you can't scale the displacement if you change your mind and want to use a smaller or larger scale, without rebiulding all your work. YOu can scale the brush under the displacment, but that doesn't change the displacement.

Anyway, am I missing something?

Thanks

You can scale
displacements. It's under the displacement options in the texture
application tool. You'll see it there. If you originally
created the displacaments with a scale of 1, then change it to .0625 to
make them smaller. I find it easier to create the originals with
a scale of 16, so then I can lower it to 1 when I was the 3d skybox.

As for the 1/4 vs. 1/16 thing, I haven't tried anything but 1/16. I didn't know anything else was possible.

aztec is 1/4, and I think you're right, 3d skybox rendering is cheap,
so it does make sense to use 1/8 or 1/4. I do all my major
brushwork on a 8 unit grid, so probably 1/8 is the perfect scale for
me. If you did all your work on a 16 unit grid then there
probably wouldnt be anything different in 1/16 scale to 1/8 or 1/4
scale.

Great answers. I love this board...

Thanks.

(But really, 1/16th, when rendered in the skybox, tends to look like those books for building your own cardboard castle.)