Textures

1. Texture Mapping
2. Billboards
3. Texture Atlas

Textures are 2D images: art or photos, used in a number of possible ways within a 3D application. A 3D application can also procedurally generate a texture or create a texture by rendering to a texture instead of the screen.

The following sections describe some of the different aspects related to 3D application textures.

Texture Mapping

Texture mapping is used to apply 2D images to 3D Models. The texture and uv mapping coordinates are provided as part of the .GLB asset files. Texture images for 3D Models are intended to work with a particular model.

Billboards

Billboards are 2D images that always face the viewer. Billboards give the impression of a 3D object, while being very effecient in 3D resources.

Using billboards implies using a billboard aware shader that properly presents the 2D images. Particle systems also make use of billboards ensuring the backing quad for each particle always faces the user.

Texture Atlas

A texture atlas combines multiple images into a single texture file. This allows texture assets to load quicker. It also speeds up rendering because the GPU can reuse a single texture for multiple 3D objects. A texture atlas is also used for bitmapped fonts. A texture atlas can also be used to group image assets like icons. It is far easier to manage one asset file with 64 icons than 64 icon asset files.