Texture memory is usually the largest single cost in a mobile or standalone VR build, and most projects set resolution by habit rather than by need.
Think in texels per unit. What matters is how much texture covers how much of the screen. A one metre crate the player holds up to their face needs far more resolution than a ten metre wall they walk past. Same size on disk, wildly different value.
A workable starting point:
- Hero items the player inspects up close: 1024, occasionally 2048
- Regular props and characters at normal distance: 512
- Background and set dressing: 256
- Tiling surfaces such as floors and walls: 512 tiled, rather than one huge unique texture
- Anything the player never gets near: 128, or vertex colour
Then check the actual result rather than trusting the list. Unity's texture importer lets you override max size per platform, so you can author at high resolution and ship lower without touching source files. Halve a texture, look at it in the game on a real device, and if you cannot tell, keep the smaller one.
Compression matters as much as size. On mobile, use ASTC. An uncompressed 512 costs more memory than a compressed 1024.
Atlas small things. Many small textures each cost a draw call if they use separate materials. Combining set dressing into one atlas saves both memory and draw calls.
Do not forget the channels you are shipping. A metallic or roughness map often does not need the resolution of the albedo, and normal maps for soft organic shapes can usually drop a step without anyone noticing.
The habit worth building: budget texture memory per scene at the start, and check it at every milestone. It is much easier to hold a budget than to claw memory back at the end.
Think in texels per unit. What matters is how much texture covers how much of the screen. A one metre crate the player holds up to their face needs far more resolution than a ten metre wall they walk past. Same size on disk, wildly different value.
A workable starting point:
- Hero items the player inspects up close: 1024, occasionally 2048
- Regular props and characters at normal distance: 512
- Background and set dressing: 256
- Tiling surfaces such as floors and walls: 512 tiled, rather than one huge unique texture
- Anything the player never gets near: 128, or vertex colour
Then check the actual result rather than trusting the list. Unity's texture importer lets you override max size per platform, so you can author at high resolution and ship lower without touching source files. Halve a texture, look at it in the game on a real device, and if you cannot tell, keep the smaller one.
Compression matters as much as size. On mobile, use ASTC. An uncompressed 512 costs more memory than a compressed 1024.
Atlas small things. Many small textures each cost a draw call if they use separate materials. Combining set dressing into one atlas saves both memory and draw calls.
Do not forget the channels you are shipping. A metallic or roughness map often does not need the resolution of the albedo, and normal maps for soft organic shapes can usually drop a step without anyone noticing.
The habit worth building: budget texture memory per scene at the start, and check it at every milestone. It is much easier to hold a budget than to claw memory back at the end.