This page contains the following sections:
Use the API to apply more control over how Unity streams Textures. You can override which mip map level to load for specific Textures, while the Mip Map Streaming system automatically manages all other Textures. You might have specific gameplay scenarios where you know that Unity needs to fully load certain Textures. For example, moving large distances quickly, or using instantaneous CameraA component which creates an image of a particular viewpoint in your scene. The output is either drawn to the screen or captured as a texture. More info
See in Glossary cuts, can cause noticeable Texture quality changes while the Mip Map Streaming system streams the mip maps from the disk into memory. To reduce this problem, you can use the API to preload mip maps at a new Camera location .
To enable and control Mip Map Streaming on a Texture, use the following properties:
Mip Map Streaming automatically reduces the size of Textures until they fit into the Mip Map Streaming Memory Budget. The Texture’s Mip Map Priority number is roughly a mip map offset for the Memory Budget. For example, with a priority of 2, the Mip Map Streaming system tries to use a mip map that is two mip levels higher than other Textures with a priority of 0. Negative values are also valid. If it can’t do this, it uses a lower mip level to fit the Memory Budget.
These properties are read-only at runtime:
To control what happens at runtime, use the following static properties:
The Memory Budget property determines the maximum amount of memory Unity uses for the textures in your sceneA Scene contains the environments and menus of your game. Think of each unique Scene file as a unique level. In each Scene, you place your environments, obstacles, and decorations, essentially designing and building your game in pieces. More info
See in Glossary. It is set to 512MB by default. The Memory Budget has a high impact on your scene when using texture streaming. If your memory budget is too small, Unity lowers the resolution of textures in your scene. This can cause textures to pop or load slowly. However, the memory budget should be as small as possible to allow memory for other resources.
To figure out what your memory budget should be:
This makes sure there is enough texture memory available for the most resource-intensive areas of your scene and prevents textures from dropping to a lower resolution. If you have extra memory available, you can set a larger memory budget so that Unity can keep texture data that is not visible in your scene in the streaming cache.
In the Quality Settings (Edit > Project SettingsA broad collection of settings which allow you to configure how Physics, Audio, Networking, Graphics, Input and many other areas of your project behave. More info
See in Glossary > Quality), use Add All Cameras to specify whether Unity should calculate Mip Map Streaming for all Cameras in the Project. This is enabled by default.
For fine-grain control over which Cameras are active, use the Streaming Controller component on the same GameObjectThe fundamental object in Unity scenes, which can represent characters, props, scenery, cameras, waypoints, and more. A GameObject’s functionality is defined by the Components attached to it. More info
See in Glossary as the Camera component. This takes the location and Camera settings (such as Field of View) directly from the Camera component.
If the Camera is disabled, Unity does not calculate Mip Map Streaming for it, unless the Streaming Controller is enabled and in the preloading state. When the Streaming Controller and associated Camera are enabled, or if the Streaming Controller is in a preloading state, then Unity calculates Mip Map Streaming for this Camera. If the Streaming Controller is disabled, then Unity does not calculate Mip Map Streaming for this Camera.
The Streaming Controller component contains the Mip Map Bias setting. To control this via API, use StreamingController.streamingMipmapBias.
Use this setting to force Unity to load smaller or larger mip map levels than the Mip Map Streaming system has chosen for those Textures. Use the numerical field to set the offset that Unity applies to the mip map level. Unity adds this offset to all Textures visible from this Camera.
When cutting from one location to another, the Mip Map Streaming system needs time to stream the required Textures into Unity. To trigger preloading at a disabled target Camera location, call StreamingController.SetPreloading on the target Camera’s Streaming Controller component. You can specify a time-out to end the preloading phase. To automatically enable the Camera at the end of the preloading phase, set the activateCameraOnTimeout
flag to true in script. To disable a Camera after you cut from it to the new one, pass that Camera as the disableCameraCuttingFrom
parameter.
void StreamingController.SetPreloading(float timeoutSeconds=0.0f, bool activateCameraOnTimeout=false, Camera disableCameraCuttingFrom=null)
To cancel or query the preloading state, use the following methods:
To determine whether the Mip Map Streaming system is still loading Textures, you can query the following properties:
Note that there is delay between when you enable a Camera and when these properties become a value other than zero. This delay is because the Mip Map Streaming system calculates the mip maps using time-sliced processing. For this reason, during a Camera cut you should wait a minimum length of time before the cut. Texture budget and Scene movement can cause continuous Mip Map Streaming, so you also need to set a maximum length of time before the cut.
To override the mip level calculation for a specific Texture, use Texture2D.requestedMipmapLevel. This is an exact mip level ranging from 0 to the maximum mip level of the specific Texture, or the Max Level Reduction value if that is lower. 0 is the highest resolution mip.
To check if your requested mip level has loaded, use Texture2D.IsRequestedMipmapLevelLoaded.
If you no longer want to override the mip level you requested and instead want the system to continue to calculate mip map levels, use Texture2D.ClearRequestedMipmapLevel to reset the value.
To get an estimate of the UV density on a MeshThe main graphics primitive of Unity. Meshes make up a large part of your 3D worlds. Unity supports triangulated or Quadrangulated polygon meshes. Nurbs, Nurms, Subdiv surfaces must be converted to polygons. More info
See in Glossary, use the following:
float Mesh.GetUVDistributionMetric(int uvSetIndex)
You can use the UV distribution metric to calculate the mipmap level you need, based on the position of the Camera. See Mesh.GetUVDistributionMetric for example code.
To override the system and force all mips to load, use Texture.streamingTextureForceLoadAll.
To get and set a Texture assigned to a Material, use:
To get all Texture properties on a Material, use:
To get per-texture streaming info in material properties that can be used for creating debug visualisations use Texture.SetStreamingTextureMaterialDebugProperties.
You can use Texture.SetStreamingTextureMaterialDebugProperties] to assign streaming status information for each texture to material properties. You can then use these properties in the shader to create debug visualizations.
You can also use these properties to create Mipmap Streaming profiling and debugging tools for your project.
To get information about the number of Textures or renderers the Mip Map Streaming system is interacting with, use the following properties:
To get information about mipmap levels for a texture, use the following properties:
You can use the Mip Map Streaming system to stream lightmaps. You can edit the Texture settings directly, but they reset to their default values when Unity regenerates the lightmaps. The Player SettingsSettings that let you set various player-specific options for the final game built by Unity. More info
See in Glossary (Edit > Project Settings > Player) provide two controls to set streaming and priority for generated lightmaps: Lightmap Streaming Enabled and Streaming Priority.
Mip Map Streaming is enabled in Play Mode by default. However, when running in Play Mode, the Editor overheads bias the statistics. To get accurate figures, test the application on the target device.
When Mip Map Streaming is enabled in Play mode, but not enabled in Edit mode (or the other way around), toggling in and out of Play mode takes slightly longer. To disable Mip Map Streaming in Play mode, go to the Editor Settings (Edit > Project Settings > Editor), navigate to Streaming Settings and disable Enabled Texture Streaming in Play Mode. This prevents Unity from unloading and reloading mip map data, and should speed up the Play mode workflow.
When you visit any website, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. This information might be about you, your preferences or your device and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to. The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalized web experience. Because we respect your right to privacy, you can choose not to allow some types of cookies. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings. However, blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer.
More information
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some or all of these services may not function properly.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising. Some 3rd party video providers do not allow video views without targeting cookies. If you are experiencing difficulty viewing a video, you will need to set your cookie preferences for targeting to yes if you wish to view videos from these providers. Unity does not control this.
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.