Why can't I change anisotropic level in a 2D sprite's import settings?

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As you can see in the attached image, the aniso level option in the import settings for a sprite I imported is greyed out. I believe this has something to do with a change in a recent Unity update, because I don't remember aniso level being there before, and all the other sprites which were there before I updated Unity all have it set at 16 (although they also have it greyed out). How could I "unlock" the option? I tried changing the anisotropic-related options in Quality Settings but nothing seems to work.

Answer 1

Answer by sarahnorthway · Mar 30, 2021 at 05:14 PM

Aniso Level is greyed out on any type of texture that has Generate Mip Maps disabled.

Mip Maps are useful for improving visual quality and reducing GPU cache, even on unscaled camera-facing 2d sprites, if your game supports multiple screen resolutions. You usually won't need aniso on these (exception: stretched sprites eg 9-slice boxes).

Anisotropic Textures can be disabled or forced on globally via project quality settings. Both aniso level 1 (the default) and 0 mean "off" but aniso level 0 overrides the "Forced On" global setting and continues to stay "off". This can have a big effect on performance.

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sarahnorthway · Mar 30, 2021 at 05:25 PM 0

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Also: aniso is a type of Filter Mode, after Point, Bilinear, Trilinear. Aniso is the best and most expensive of the 4 types. The algorithm takes extra samples from multiple mipmaps when the texture is squished or displayed at an oblique angle, and falls back to Trilinear when it is not.

Answer 2

Answer by tanoshimi · Dec 29, 2016 at 08:23 AM

Why would you need anisotropic filtering on a sprite? That seems like an oxymoron to me.

Sprites, by definition, are 2d textures aligned to the camera view.
Anisotropy, by definition, relates to textures at an oblique angle to the camera view.

I can't think why they'd ever relate to each other.

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DreadSentry · Dec 29, 2016 at 04:29 PM 0

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I mostly just wanted to know why the sprites that were there previously have a default level of 16 while the new one has a 1. I have not yet used a 3D view and wanted to solve this before it became a problem down the line if I ever decide to try 3D.

Also, I'm not sure if anisotropic level still affects performance even in 2D, which is why I wanted to change all the others to 0 just in case.

sarahnorthway · Mar 30, 2021 at 04:22 PM 0

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Aniso level IS used for sprites - specifically 9-sliced images. When the middle sections get stretched, disabling Anisotropic Textures in the quality settings change my 9-slice sprites from a crisp image to a very blurry one.

Sprites also don't need to be aligned to the Camera. There are times/uses where it would be at an oblique angle, eg in a curved or animated UI.

And yes, it affects performance even in 2D.

Answer 3

Answer by travelsound84 · Sep 27, 2017 at 10:03 AM

I have the same problem, textures that I newly import look very pixeley and the only difference to my old textures is the Aniso Level, which I can't change as it is greyed out. My old textures have it set to 16, and they look great. I tried to lower the old textures Aniso level to 1, to find out if they would look pixely like the new sprite (from the newly imported texture), but everytime I press Apply, the Aniso Level on them gets changed back to 16. Any suggestions?

PS: Please answer the question, don't give smart-ass answers like tanoshimi here..

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radekraichl · Sep 30, 2017 at 01:58 PM 1

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You must turn on "Generate $$anonymous$$ip $$anonymous$$ap"

travelsound84 · Oct 03, 2017 at 09:21 AM 0

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Thanks radekraichl! That worked! :)

havokentity · Nov 06, 2018 at 08:01 AM 1

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Just want to add that tanoshimi is still correct, but turning on mipmaps helps, and don't forget to enable anistropy in your quality settings as well. Anistropic filtering is disabled on 2D projects by default because anisotropic filtering can't add visual quality to 2D

Why can't I change anisotropic level in a 2D sprite's import settings?

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