Material usage, one per model or per object?

Posted by WSkid on Game Development See other posts from Game Development or by WSkid
Published on 2012-06-03T22:03:38Z Indexed on 2012/06/03 22:48 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 222

Filed under:

3d

|

textures

|

Performance

Is it better (memory, time (of developer), space) to use single model that is unwrapped and uses a single material or to break a model down into appropriate bits, each with their own smaller texture/material?

Or does it depend on the target platform as to what is acceptable - ie PC vs tablet?

An example: Say you have a typical house with a tiled roof.

Model it, make sure everything is attached, unwrap the walls/roof so in your UV template the walls and roof would be in one texture file, side-by-side in say a 512x512 file.
Model the roof/walls as separate objects, unwrap them individually and have two UV templates. You could then have a 256x256 file for each one.

© Game Development or respective owner

Related posts about 3d

How to convert videos to 3D format so that I can watch them with 3D glasses

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Are there any softwares to convert 2D videos to 3D (preferably XviD avi) so that I can watch them with 3D glasses? No matter if it's freeware or shareware. >>> More
In Email, Image (img) Source (src) Tags are rewritten as relative links. How to fix?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm working on sending out an html based email, and every time it sends the image src tags and some of the anchor href tags are modified to be relative url's. Update 2: This is happening between when the body of the email is generated and sent and when it arrives in my inbox. Update: I am using… >>> More
WPF 3D - Need help writing conversion methods between 2D and 3D (Point3DToPoint and PointAndZToPoint

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm new to WPF 3D, so I may just be missing something obvious, but how do I convert from 3D to 2D and (for a given z location) from 2D to 3D? Specifically, I need two conversion methods: Point3DToPoint - If I have an (x, y, z) coordinate in the 3D world, how do I determine the (x, y) coordinate… >>> More
3D point on 3D mesh surface

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi All, How can I get a 3D point on 3D mesh surface made up triangulars ? The 3D point may be anywhere on the 3D surface. Thanks. M.Ken >>> More
Matlab 3d volume visualization and 3d overlay

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi, so the question ist pretty much the title. I have a 3d volume loaded as raw data [256, 256, 256] = size(A). It contains only values of zero's and ones, where the 1's represent the structure and 0's the "air". I want to visualize the structure in matlab and then run an algorithm on it and put… >>> More

Related posts about textures

Textures on top of other textures when using VBOs

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I'm currently making a cube style game. With chunks being drawn with VBOs. I'd like to know if there is a way to create an overlay texture on top of the existing texture without the need to rebuild the VBO. This is required to show activity in a cube (think of Minecraft when destroying a block and… >>> More
Texture switching with a entity system

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I'm using thinking of using an entity system in my game. So far I've been using Artemis with success. However, I have a question about texture switching. I read that switching textures too often is bad. So I load all the textures when the game loads like so: import org.newdawn.slick.opengl.TextureLoader; … >>> More
SFML: Generate a background image

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I want to generate a background, which is used in the game, on every instance of the game based on certain conditions. To do so, I'm using a sf::RenderTexture and a sf::Texture like this: sf::RenderTexture image; std::vector<sf::Texture> textures; sf::Texture texture; // instantiating the vector… >>> More
Unity: how to apply programmatical changes to the Terrain SplatPrototype?

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I have a script to which I add a Terrain object (I drag and drop the terrain in the public Terrain field). The Terrain is already setup in Unity to have 2 PaintTextures: 1 is a Square (set up with a tile size so that it forms a checkered pattern) and the 2nd one is a grass image: Also the Target… >>> More
SDL2 sprite batching and texture atlases

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I have been programming a 2D game in C++, using the SDL2 graphics API for rendering. My game concept currently features effects that could result in even tens of thousands of sprites being drawn simultaneously to the screen. I'd like to know what can be done for increasing rendering efficiency if… >>> More