Object Textures

Use Small and Simple textures to keep the Spaces experience light for all users.

Because Vatom spaces are hosted on the internet, we recommend using the smallest textures possible to ensure the best experience for all users on all devices. Each model and texture affects the overall performance of the space, and large textures causing problems for some individual visitors can negatively affect the performance of the space when lots of people are in it.

• PBR textures should be saved to 1K size (1024x1024px)
• There should be a maximum of 256 MB of texture memory visible at any same time for optimal performance. This limit is for your entire space, not a single model.

Only use high resolution textures for areas that you know the user will be focusing on, and not for background or filler objects. Not all meshes need high resolution textures applied to them when a basic color will do.

Physics Based Rendering

Vatom Spaces uses glTF as the 3D object standard. Read full documentation on glTF export from Blender. In Vatom Spaces, PBR textures react to and reflect the Environment Map and Environment Lighting and in-world point and spot lights. 

Commonly used PBR textures include a Base Color or Albedo texture, and a Normal Map. Other texture maps available in glTF format are Metallic, Roughness, Emissive, and Occlusion.

Note: PBR textures should be saved to 1K size (1024x1024px) and are best used Tiled in your scene to improve performance.

An example of the various image maps available in the glTF 2.0 core format. You can download the above Water Bottle example in glb format, which is an Attachment to this document.

You can experience glTF Examples in-world in our glTF Examples Space 

UV Texturing with a Color Palette

• A simple 8x8 color palette can be used for a lot of the texture work and goes a very long way in keeping the file sizes low.
• Using an 8x8 palette allows you to have the same material assigned to multiple objects in the scene. Make sure to adjust the UV positions to match the color you are looking for.

An example of an 8x8 color palette can be seen below:

Youtuber Imphenzia gives a great quick tutorial on UV Coloring, Tip 16 in the video above.

Texture Specifications

"Power of 2"

You must use textures that use a power of 2 resolution for optimal performance.

Images sized to a power of 2 (x²) allow the processor to work most efficiently. Traditionally power-of-2 graphics fit the following Criteria:

1. Width and height being divisible by 8
2. Width and height that can be doubled-up or divided-down by 2.

A few examples of power of 2 textures are: 

• 512x512 (1:1)
• 1024x1024 (1:1)
• 2048x1024 (2:1)

 Distant Texture Resolution

Lowering the texture resolution for areas that are far away from the user will significantly improve performance. Below is an example of reducing the texture resolution for objects that are further away from the user.

The resolution for a single texture should not exceed 2048x2048 and should be an optimized JPEG image. If the image contains alpha value data, then a 24-bit PNG should be used.

UV Mapping

Faces that require more detail should have their UV coordinates take up more space on the texture map than those that do not require as much detail.

For example: the face of a human character should have more detail than the rest of the body, so it should take up more space than any other body part. Below is an example of a human character UV map.

As seen above, the face takes up a third of the texture map, allowing for a higher level of detail without increasing texture resolution. Image courtesy of Autodesk Knowledge Network.