Draw calls and texture sharing question...

jordank95

trying to understand this a bit better, and here’s what I know - for small assets that will be on screen at the same time, you should create one texture set that they all share. 

Where do you draw the line? I could technically put a crate, some garbage, and some other small things on the same texture, but they won’t always be on the screen together at the same time. Sometimes maybe 3 out of the 5 things might be, sometimes only 1 out of those 5 things might be. 

So what’s the more defined rule here? When do draw calls for materials/textures become an issue?

m4dcow

There isn't really any hard rule. I would say if you have an object that only occasionally appears with other objects leave it on its own, the exception for me might be if it is a weird UV shape that wastes space you could throw a few other things onto there.

You also have to take into consideration that some engines might do this type of atlassing under the hood them selves so it might not be the best use of time to do it yourself.

Personally I only tend to atlas scatter type type objects. so like ground plants/grass, garbage, rocks, ground clutter etc... Other more substantial objects I would just leave on there own maps and if the game needs optimization down the line they can be dealt with at that point instead of slowing production.