Despite significant technological advances through rendering and workflow processes for game art creation, texel density standards have remained relatively stable over the years. The industry standard of 10.24 pixels per centimeter (px/cm) has persisted across many game development projects, though its important to highlight that there are variations based on project needs.
Even with higher resolution displays becoming available, many players still use 1080p displays. This influences texel density decisions, as there's little benefit in creating excess detail that most players won't see. In the future it is assumed that the standard monitor will become 4k.
Current Understandings
At its core, texel density serves as a quality control tool to ensure consistent detail levels across a game's assets. It helps prevent situations where a building's door might appear twice as detailed as the building itself. Memory is also wasted on unnecessary detail in less important assets.
There are general rules of thumb for why to use certain texel densities (for first person view vs. third person, for example), but ultimately as long as you understand the concept and apply the texel density correctly to your own scene, it can vary.
Keeping consistency helps across the board and shows how texel density has evolved from a simple technical specification into a cornerstone of modern game art pipelines, influencing everything from asset creation workflows to memory optimization strategies.
Industry Practices
Modern games typically use a combination of techniques to achieve consistent Texel Density. The balance of these uniquely textured assets vs tiled material and shader techniques highly depends on a projects goals and needs.
- Unique textures for small/medium props.
- Trim sheets are often used for architectural elements
- Tiled materials for larger surfaces and can be broken up with masks or vertex paint to hide the tiling patterns that become present at high tiling amounts.
- Mirror UV techniques to increase texture usage.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do we use 10.24 Instead of 1024 when talking about Texel Density resolutions?
its simply the conversion of a texture at 1024 pixels across a meter being divided up until you know how many pixels are in a centimeter. 1024/100 = 10.24
Useful Resources
What is texel density? by Chris Green
All you need to know about texel density by Leonardo Iezzi
Texel Density and other bits of texture theory by Anthony O Donnell
Understanding UVs and texel density by Substance Academy