Question by MarkLaBarr · Mar 08, 2015 at 01:32 AM · shader material optimization cube

What is the Best Material Practice for Low-Poly Cube Style

Alright, so for a low-poly cube style game, I believe a texture atlas would be best and group the environment objects together instead of having separate objects and increasing draw calls and having materials for each.

But since the colors are all solid, plain colors, how would I go about to optimize the texture atlas? Are there minimum size requirements? Could the texture atlas theoretically have colors 1x1 pixel gridded out?

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AlwaysSunny · Mar 06, 2015 at 07:41 PM 0

"I believe a texture atlas would be best"
Yes, definitely. Conveniently your world-building procedure will provide an opportunity to UV/texture in the build pass.

"group the environment objects together"
This is absolutely essential. Also somewhat complicated, but there's really no way around this step. Groups are called "chunks" in "voxel" style game worlds. There's plenty of information about this floating around.

"But since the colors are all solid, plain colors, how would I go about to optimize the texture atlas? Are there $$anonymous$$imum size requirements?"
Technically no, but power-of-two sizes are favorable, starting with 4x4.

"Could the texture atlas theoretically have colors 1x1 pixel gridded out?"
Yes, but, if you only need solid colors, textures are a complete waste. Just use a vertex color shader and set its vertex colors in the build pass (where you'd otherwise set UVs).