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SparseTexture

class in UnityEngine

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Inherits from:Texture

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Implemented in:UnityEngine.CoreModule

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Description

Class for handling Sparse Textures.

Sparse textures are textures where not the whole texture data can be present in memory at once. They are also commonly called "tiled textures" or "mega textures".

Imagine a 16384x16384 texture at 32 bits per pixel - it would take 1GB of memory. The texture is broken down into rectangular "tiles", and each tile can either be present in memory or not. You can load & unload these tiles as needed based on distance from the camera, sectors of the world that the player has to see, etc.

Otherwise, the sparse textures behave just like any other texture in shaders - they can have mipmaps, can use all texture filtering modes, etc. If you happen to read from a tile that's not present, you can get undefined result (on many GPUs the result is a black color, but that's not guaranteed).

Note that not all hardware and platforms support sparse textures, so you should check SystemInfo.supportsSparseTextures before using them. For example, on DirectX systems they require DX11.2 (Windows 8.1) and a fairly recent GPU; and on OpenGL they require ARB_sparse_texture extension support.

After creating the sparse texture, query the tile size with tileWidth & tileHeight. Tile sizes are platform and GPU dependent.

Use UpdateTile or UpdateTileRaw to make a tile resident in memory and update its color data. Use UnloadTile to unload a tile.

See Also: Sparse Textures documentation page.

Properties

isCreatedIs the sparse texture actually created? (Read Only)
tileHeightGet sparse texture tile height (Read Only).
tileWidthGet sparse texture tile width (Read Only).

Constructors

SparseTextureCreate a sparse texture.

Public Methods

UnloadTileUnload sparse texture tile.
UpdateTileUpdate sparse texture tile with color values.
UpdateTileRawUpdate sparse texture tile with raw pixel values.

Inherited Members

Static Properties

currentTextureMemoryThe amount of memory currently being used by textures.
desiredTextureMemoryThis amount of texture memory would be used before the texture streaming budget is applied.
nonStreamingTextureCountNumber of non-streaming textures.
nonStreamingTextureMemoryTotal amount of memory being used by non-streaming textures.
streamingMipmapUploadCountHow many times has a texture been uploaded due to texture mipmap streaming.
streamingRendererCountNumber of renderers registered with the texture streaming system.
streamingTextureCountNumber of streaming textures.
streamingTextureDiscardUnusedMipsForce the streaming texture system to discard all unused mipmaps immediately, rather than caching them until the texture memory budget is exceeded.
streamingTextureForceLoadAllForce streaming textures to load all mipmap levels.
streamingTextureLoadingCountNumber of streaming textures with mipmaps currently loading.
streamingTexturePendingLoadCountNumber of streaming textures with outstanding mipmaps to be loaded.
targetTextureMemoryThe amount of memory used by textures after the mipmap streaming and budget are applied and loading is complete.
totalTextureMemoryThe total amount of memory that would be used by all textures at mipmap level 0.

Properties

hideFlagsShould the object be hidden, saved with the Scene or modifiable by the user?
nameThe name of the object.
anisoLevelAnisotropic filtering level of the texture.
dimensionDimensionality (type) of the texture (Read Only).
filterModeFiltering mode of the texture.
heightHeight of the texture in pixels. (Read Only)
imageContentsHashThe hash value of the Texture.
mipMapBiasMip map bias of the texture.
updateCountThis counter is incremented when the texture is updated.
widthWidth of the texture in pixels. (Read Only)
wrapModeTexture coordinate wrapping mode.
wrapModeUTexture U coordinate wrapping mode.
wrapModeVTexture V coordinate wrapping mode.
wrapModeWTexture W coordinate wrapping mode for Texture3D.

Public Methods

GetInstanceIDReturns the instance id of the object.
ToStringReturns the name of the GameObject.
GetNativeTexturePtrRetrieve a native (underlying graphics API) pointer to the texture resource.
IncrementUpdateCountIncrement the update counter.

Static Methods

DestroyRemoves a gameobject, component or asset.
DestroyImmediateDestroys the object obj immediately. You are strongly recommended to use Destroy instead.
DontDestroyOnLoadDo not destroy the target Object when loading a new Scene.
FindObjectOfTypeReturns the first active loaded object of Type type.
FindObjectsOfTypeReturns a list of all active loaded objects of Type type.
InstantiateClones the object original and returns the clone.
SetGlobalAnisotropicFilteringLimitsSets Anisotropic limits.
SetStreamingTextureMaterialDebugPropertiesUploads additional debug information to materials using textures set to stream mip maps.

Operators

boolDoes the object exist?
operator !=Compares if two objects refer to a different object.
operator ==Compares two object references to see if they refer to the same object.

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