Atlas texture with only one mesh?

Development Asset Creation
1

Hello, I have some questions about atlas textures. I know it is possible to use several meshs that will share a single texture but is it possible to use an atlas texture with only one mesh?

For example:

I would like to create a road sign with several speed limits. My idea was to create the texture with all the speed limits in one texture, then use a single mesh for the road sign. Finally, I could instantiate the same mesh on my scene but with different speed limits.
But I don’t know how to proceed when creating the material in the editor.

Is this possible? If so, can you tell me how and where to start?

Is this method the right one? If there is another method, don’t hesitate to let me know!

I’ve been looking a lot on the web but I can’t find an answer.

Thank you very much!

2
3

Thank you for the link, after looking at it I did some research about UV and I came up with a result with this method:

I first created a simple texture numbered from 1 to 4.

9f31a79a7e40ce685f258e2d77b17c2a.png
9f31a79a7e40ce685f258e2d77b17c2a.png746×449 12.7 KB

then I imported a simple mesh with uvs unfolded like this:

2ad44f32885170f3a5a1e6336bb57124.jpg
2ad44f32885170f3a5a1e6336bb57124.jpg834×469 58.1 KB

then with the help of another tutorial I created several nodes looking like this

b81415c0829527d0adf62fc786ebbcdf.png
b81415c0829527d0adf62fc786ebbcdf.png794×616 60.7 KB

then with several material instances I was able to get the result I wanted.

c64836196a7f1e1045bfbfefc2389e2f.jpg
c64836196a7f1e1045bfbfefc2389e2f.jpg1126×749 92.9 KB

My only question is, is this method consistent in terms of optimization?

Thank you very much!

Sorry, English is not my native language. I hope the translation is correct!

4

Well in terms of optimization the fact that the material is based on the use of a texture atlas it really does not get any better as to the purpose of cutting down on the number of draw calls. With UE4 the problem of mesh fidelity has been solved but materials is still an issue that can impact performance, more so in the area of VR and mobile gaming, so the ideals as to best practice is based more of the context in which the solution is used.

For example this is an out line where a material artist made an environment using a single 256X512 texture in UDK.

If you have UDK you can download the sample file to see how the magic trick was done.

So based on your project, the context, your solution will work fine as far as optimization goes as it does decrease the need for addition draw calls via the use of instanced materials.