The new SetPixels32 block override in Unity 5

Unity Engine
1

Ok so… been waiting for ages for a faster way to upload parts of an existing texture. I see Unity 5 now adds an override to SetPixels32 which lets you set just a rectangular block of pixels. Sounds helpful… not to have to set all the pixels in the entire texture.

What I’d like to know is, once you call Apply(). … will it ONLY upload the blocks of pixels that were modified (e.g. like with glTexSubImage2D()) OR will it actually still upload the entire array of pixels/the whole texture over the graphics bus?

I guess I could sort of test this with an experiment, but I’d like the official verdict.

If not, then as a feature request, I’d like to see like ApplyRect() as a new command… like Apply(), which accepts a rectangle, describing which portion of the texture actually gets applied/uploaded… so the whole thing doesn’t have to go over the bus every time. That would be really helpful.

2

Logically, Apply has no way of knowing what you did with SetPixels32, so the only possibility is that Apply uploads the entire texture as always. But yes a ApplyRect function would be nice.

–Eric

3

Understood… but I know what rect I want updated… so if I were to do

a) SetPixels32() - modify a rect using known coords
b) ApplyRect32() - upload only that known rect using same coords

then Unity doesn’t have to keep track of where the rects are. Although… maybe it’d be nice for it to keep a log of calls to SetPixels32() rect version, so that those rects are then uploaded as multiple partial uploads automatically?

:smiley: