Texel density is essential for maintaining the right texture sizes in real-time graphics applications such as games. It helps prevent over-detailing, under-detailing, and wasted detail due to downsampling. Additionally, it prevents unnecessary VRAM wastage by ensuring that textures are appropriately sized for the objects in the game world.
In a static rendering context, it also helps to improve render speeds and reduces the amount of RAM required for textures in large and complicated scenes.
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00:00 - Intro
00:14 - Table of contents
00:44 - What is texel density
02:15 - Using a visual analogy
03:14 - Affecting TD with texture size
04:07 - Affecting TD with surface area
04:30 - Affecting TD with UV scaling
05:05 - A common misconception
06:28 - Texel density vs visual fidelity analogy
07:18 - Why care about texel density
07:35 - Single object context
09:41 - Choosing not to have consistent TD on a single object
10:16 - Multi-object context
11:05 - Up and down sampling
12:16 - How to select the right texel density
12:27 - First-person context
12:55 - Third-person context
13:03 - Top-down/strategy context
13:20 - One method to work out target texel density
14:23 - A demonstration in Blender
16:13 - Various UV packing methods
16:26 - Strict TD adherence
16:44 - Soft TD adherence
17:06 - Texture atlasing
17:18 - Object scale/surface area
17:41 - Non-square packing
18:26 - Outro
Add-ons mentioned/used in this video:
Texel Density Checker: https://mrven.gumroad.com/l/CEIOR
UVPackmaster: https://glukoz.gumroad.com/l/uvpackmaster3