What is Texture Atlas and why we need it?

Let’s imagine we have 10 objects and each of them has its own UV map and texture. While it is okay in many cases, when you’re going to export it into the game engine, 10 object would mean 10 drawcalls. That’s not good.

To reduce the drawcalls to 1 we need to combine our 10 UV maps into 1 big UV map. Using Texture Atlas add-on for Blender, we can automatically do this tedious task.

Another reason to have 1 texture is that we can paint over all objects at once. Very convenient.

What exactly Texture Atlas add-on for Blender does?

1. Joins all selected objects

2. Unwraps into 1 UV map (there are a few methods available, including manual unwrap)

3. Separates the parts when done

This is the video #3 from the set of quick tutorials for Blender and Unity, dedicated to

Game Level Texturing 

1. Block out the model & Optimize it

2. Unwrap everything into 1 UV map
3. Paint and project the texture
4. Clone details from 2-nd UV map
5. Bake texture

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