Cost of world aligned texture node

[Davestation]

Hi guys,

I want to use the world space texture node but keep hearing it’s expensive but nobody seems to say just how expensive it is. My set up is as follows.

I have a cathedral built out of modular parts, There are separate textures for one of the walls (a piece of art) and the ceilings, pews, Windows and floor.
The walls and various levels however are modular and repeat so using the world aligned texture keeps everything nicely tiled and seamless.

The texture for the walls itself is made up of 3 diffuse textures, a damage texture and 4 masks to create variation in the tiling. The platform i’m targeting is HTC’s Vive.

So my questions are…

1. Is the World aligned Texture node so expensive as to make its use pointless?
2. Does having the same texture applied to many modular pieces slow things down?
3. should I combine the modular assets in to one static mesh to improve performance?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

D

[Deathrey (DeathreyCG)]

1. Yes, it is quite expensive, and should be used, when its use is necessary. In your case the use would be unjustified.
2. Nope, the same texture applied to multiple meshes does not slow down anything. It is the number of individual meshes, that causes the slowdown.
3. Depends on granularity of the assets. It is always a balance, where on one part you have number of meshes, and on the other part you have culling efficiency. On your screenshot, the modular parts seem like you would not need to consider merging them.

[Davestation]

Thanks for the help, I’ve currently got the texture applied to the entire finished cathedral and it has resolved issues I was having with texture resolution and repeating patterns but the consensus seems to be as you say, that the cost of the node is just too high for use in this instance.