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).
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. Sparse textures only support non-compressed texture formats.
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.
Additional resources: Sparse Textures.
| isCreated | Is the sparse texture actually created? (Read Only) |
| tileHeight | Get sparse texture tile height (Read Only). |
| tileWidth | Get sparse texture tile width (Read Only). |
| SparseTexture | Create a sparse texture. |
| UnloadTile | Unload sparse texture tile. |
| UpdateTile | Update sparse texture tile with color values. |
| UpdateTileRaw | Update sparse texture tile with raw pixel values. |
| allowThreadedTextureCreation | Allow Unity internals to perform Texture creation on any thread (rather than the dedicated render thread). |
| currentTextureMemory | The amount of memory that all Textures in the scene use. |
| desiredTextureMemory | The total size of the Textures, in bytes, that Unity loads if there were no other constraints. Before Unity loads any Textures, it applies the memory budget which reduces the loaded Texture resolution if the Texture sizes exceed its value. The desiredTextureMemory value takes into account the mipmap levels that Unity has requested or that you have set manually.For example, if Unity does not load a Texture at full resolution because it is far away or its requested mipmap level is greater than 0, Unity reduces the desiredTextureMemory value to match the total memory needed.The desiredTextureMemory value can be greater than the Texture.targetTextureMemory value. |
| GenerateAllMips | Can be used with Texture constructors that take a mip count to indicate that all mips should be generated. The value of this field is -1. |
| nonStreamingTextureCount | The number of non-streaming Textures in the scene. This includes instances of Texture2D and CubeMap Textures. This does not include any other Texture types, or 2D and CubeMap Textures that Unity creates internally. |
| nonStreamingTextureMemory | The amount of memory Unity allocates for non-streaming Textures in the scene. This only includes instances of Texture2D and CubeMap Textures. This does not include any other Texture types, or 2D and CubeMap Textures that Unity creates internally. |
| streamingMipmapUploadCount | How many times has a Texture been uploaded due to Texture mipmap streaming. |
| streamingRendererCount | Number of renderers registered with the Texture streaming system. |
| streamingTextureCount | Number of streaming Textures. |
| streamingTextureDiscardUnusedMips | This property forces the streaming Texture system to discard all unused mipmaps instead of caching them until the Texture memory budget is exceeded. This is useful when you profile or write tests to keep a predictable set of Textures in memory. |
| streamingTextureForceLoadAll | Force streaming Textures to load all mipmap levels. |
| streamingTextureLoadingCount | Number of streaming Textures with mipmaps currently loading. |
| streamingTexturePendingLoadCount | Number of streaming Textures with outstanding mipmaps to be loaded. |
| targetTextureMemory | The total amount of Texture memory that Unity allocates to the Textures in the scene after it applies the memory budget and finishes loading Textures. `targetTextureMemory`also takes mipmap streaming settings into account. This value only includes instances of Texture2D and CubeMap Textures. This value does not include any other Texture types, or 2D and CubeMap Textures that Unity creates internally. |
| totalTextureMemory | The total amount of Texture memory that Unity would use if it loads all Textures at mipmap level 0.This is a theoretical value that does not take into account any input from the streaming system or any other input, for example when you set the`Texture2D.requestedMipmapLevel` manually.To see a Texture memory value that takes inputs into account, use `desiredTextureMemory`.`totalTextureMemory` only includes instances of Texture2D and CubeMap Textures. This value does not include any other Texture types, or 2D and CubeMap Textures that Unity creates internally. |
| hideFlags | Should the object be hidden, saved with the Scene or modifiable by the user? |
| name | The name of the object. |
| anisoLevel | Defines the anisotropic filtering level of the Texture. |
| dimension | Dimensionality (type) of the Texture (Read Only). |
| filterMode | Filtering mode of the Texture. |
| graphicsFormat | Returns the GraphicsFormat format or color format of a Texture object. |
| graphicsTexture | GraphicsTexture that represents the texture resource uploaded to the graphics device (Read Only). |
| height | Height of the Texture in pixels (Read Only). |
| imageContentsHash | The hash value of the Texture. |
| isDataSRGB | Returns true if the texture pixel data is in sRGB color space (Read Only). |
| isReadable | Whether Unity stores an additional copy of this texture's pixel data in CPU-addressable memory. |
| mipMapBias | The mipmap bias of the Texture. |
| mipmapCount | How many mipmap levels are in this Texture (Read Only). |
| updateCount | This counter is incremented when the Texture is updated. |
| width | Width of the Texture in pixels (Read Only). |
| wrapMode | Texture coordinate wrapping mode. |
| wrapModeU | Texture U coordinate wrapping mode. |
| wrapModeV | Texture V coordinate wrapping mode. |
| wrapModeW | Texture W coordinate wrapping mode for Texture3D. |
| GetInstanceID | Gets the instance ID of the object. |
| ToString | Returns the name of the object. |
| GetNativeTexturePtr | Retrieve a native (underlying graphics API) pointer to the Texture resource. |
| IncrementUpdateCount | Increment the update counter. |
| Destroy | Removes a GameObject, component or asset. |
| DestroyImmediate | Destroys the object obj immediately. You are strongly recommended to use Destroy instead. |
| DontDestroyOnLoad | Do not destroy the target Object when loading a new Scene. |
| FindAnyObjectByType | Retrieves any active loaded object of Type type. |
| FindFirstObjectByType | Retrieves the first active loaded object of Type type. |
| FindObjectsByType | Retrieves a list of all loaded objects of Type type. |
| Instantiate | Clones the object original and returns the clone. |
| SetGlobalAnisotropicFilteringLimits | Sets Anisotropic limits. |
| SetStreamingTextureMaterialDebugProperties | This function sets mipmap streaming debug properties on any materials that use this Texture through the mipmap streaming system. |
| bool | Does 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. |