Late binding is the process of loading or swapping in a Sprite AtlasA utility that packs several sprite textures tightly together within a single texture known as an atlas. More info
See in Glossary at runtime via the Sprite Atlas API. It’s necessary when the atlas isn’t available during start-up, such as when loading assets from AssetBundles. You can choose to bind different Sprite Atlases based on specific criteria, such as loading a high or low-resolution SpriteA 2D graphic objects. If you are used to working in 3D, Sprites are essentially just standard textures but there are special techniques for combining and managing sprite textures for efficiency and convenience during development. More info
See in Glossary Atlas ford different platforms to improve performance and efficiency.
After you pack your sprites into a Sprite Atlas in your project, you can decide whether to include the Sprite Atlas with the published build. To exclude the Sprite Atlas from the build, clear Include in Build in the Sprite Atlas’ properties. When not included in a build, the Sprite Atlas isn’t loaded at runtime and sprites that reference textures packed into the atlas will appear blank until you use late binding to load the atlas. Note that this also means that Unity Editor won’t automatically load the Sprite Atlas and that your sprites will appear blank when you enter Play mode.
Additional samples of the different ways and scenarios to use Sprite Atlases and late binding are available for download from the 2D Common package’s Samples tab.