Texel density

Texel density is the number of texture pixels (texels) that cover a given length of surface, usually written in pixels per metre (px/m) or pixels per centimetre (px/cm). Beyond Extent calls it "a measurement unit used to make asset textures cohesive compared to each other", measured "in pixels per centimeter (2.56px/cm) or pixels per meter (256px/m)" (Beyond Extent: Texel Density).

Texel density is used to keep assets consistent. If a crate is very sharp and the wall behind it is blurry, the scene looks wrong even when each asset is fine on its own.

A small and a large cube with the same checker texture; the large cube's squares look much bigger. — Cubes of 0.8 m and 2 m with identical UVs and texture. The big cube spreads the same pixels over 2.5 times the width, so its checker squares look 2.5 times larger. Side by side, the mismatch is obvious.Rendered in Blender 5.2 (Cycles) by the handbook author

#The formula

For a surface that covers the full width of its texture:

texel density = texture width in pixels ÷ surface width in metres

When an island only covers part of the texture, multiply by the fraction of the texture width it spans:

texel density = texture px × (island width in UV units) ÷ surface width in m

The two units convert by a factor of 100: 1024 px/m = 10.24 px/cm.

Two square walls drawn to the same scale with a 1 metre scale bar. The 2 by 2 metre wall carries a 2048 pixel texture split into an 8 by 8 grid of small cells; the 4 by 4 metre wall carries the same grid with cells twice as large. Captions read 2048 divided by 2 metres equals 1024 pixels per metre, and 2048 divided by 4 metres equals 512 pixels per metre. — The same texture stretched over twice the size halves the texel density. Each orange cell is the same 256 × 256 px block of the texture.Diagram by the handbook author

#Worked numbers

A 2 m wall with a 2048 px texture across its width: 2048 ÷ 2 = 1024 px/m (10.24 px/cm).
The same texture on a 4 m wall: 2048 ÷ 4 = 512 px/m.
A tiling floor at 512 px/m with a 1024 px material: each repeat covers 1024 ÷ 512 = 2 m. A 10 m corridor shows five repeats.
A 1 m crate at 512 px/m with unique UVs: six faces of 1 m² need 6 × 512 × 512 ≈ 1.57 million pixels. A 1024² texture has 1.05 million, so it is too small; a 2048² texture (4.19 million) has room for the islands plus padding, or you can accept a lower density on the bottom.
An island spanning a quarter of a 2048 px texture that covers 0.5 m on the model: 2048 × 0.25 ÷ 0.5 = 1024 px/m.

#Choosing a project value

There is no universal number. On Polycount, CrackRockSteady writes: "There isn't a standard for all games. Your target texel density will depend on the specific needs of your project" (Polycount: Creating Trim Sheets 4 Part Tutorial…). Still, published rules of thumb cluster around a few values.

Camera	Rule of thumb	Source
First person	Around 1024 px/m (10.24 px/cm); "your 2k map now only covers 2m"	PixelMasher on Polycount (Polycount)
Third person	512 px/m (5.12 px/cm); "2k for 4m" is "pretty standard for 3rd person games, especially if they are on console"	PixelMasher on Polycount (Polycount)
Top-down	Can be lower than other camera types	Beyond Extent, which gives no number (Beyond Extent)
Portfolio and personal projects	"Something like 20.48px/cm will be more than enough"	Beyond Extent (Beyond Extent)

Beyond Extent also notes that first-person games "usually have the highest texel density" and that third-person games "can go for a slightly lower" one (Beyond Extent: Texel Density). In a 2024 Polycount thread about AAA shooters, Benjammin guessed the modern standard is "closer to 10/cm", while stressing that this does not mean "4K textures on everything" (Polycount: Texel Density Standards for AAA First-Person…).

Pick the value early, write it into the art bibles and style guides, and test it: put a texel-density checker on a wall in the engine, walk up to it at the closest normal play distance, and see if the pixels show. Beyond Extent's test is to avoid "obvious pixelation" that gives the asset away (Beyond Extent: Texel Density).

#Tileables, trims and unique textures

Tileable materials are the easiest to keep consistent. "It's easy to stick to the texel density for tileable textures", says Beyond Extent: you just decide how many repeats per surface (Beyond Extent: Texel Density). See tileable materials.

Trim sheets need a little more care, because strips are often scaled to fit. Beyond Extent suggests "something around 25% up or down" from the target as an acceptable range (Beyond Extent: Texel Density). See trim sheets. A shipped example: Matthew Trevelyan Johns's trims for The Last of Us Part I are measured high-poly panels mapped at 512 px per metre, sized to fit most faces of small props, with grooves and rivets repeated at more than one size (ArtStation: The Last of Us: Part I...Trim Pipeline). Fixing the density first allows one sheet to serve many different props.

Unique textures are where density drifts most. Each prop gets its own map, and it is tempting to give a small prop a large texture. Calculate from the target density instead, as in the crate example above. See unique texturing.

Fifteen low-poly signs (13,567 faces on Sketchfab) whose artist publishes the density, "1400px/m = 36ppi", alongside four texture sets: two 4096² sets of poster graphics, one 4096² set for baked details and unique elements, and a 1024 × 4096 set for one sign's lamps (Sketchfab: Game Ready Japanese Plastic Signs 02). Zoom from the smallest sign to the largest: at the same density the print and the wear look equally sharp on all of them, which is the point of fixing the number first.Alex Bes, via Sketchfab Always load external media on this site

Lightmaps have their own density, measured in lightmap texels. Epic stresses an even density "to get consistent lighting when using baked lighting" (Unreal Engine documentation: Understanding Lightmapping in Unreal Engine). See lightmap UVs.

#Tools

Tool	What it does
Texel Density Checker (Blender add-on, GPL-3.0)	Calculates density for any texture size, rescales UVs to a target, copies density between objects and shows a checker (GitHub)
Blender	Average Islands Scale makes all islands "approximately the same scale" (Blender Manual), useful before setting a value
Maya	Texel Density in the UV Toolkit's Transform section: select a shell, enter the map size and press Get (Autodesk Community)
RizomUV	Texel density bar and histograms; lets you "customize your packing scale and texel density" (80 Level)
Unreal Engine	Texture-streaming view modes such as Required Texture Resolution and Mesh UV Density Accuracy (Unreal Engine documentation); Lightmap Density view mode for lightmaps (Unreal Engine documentation)

Unreal's streaming view modes colour objects by whether the loaded mip is right: red means "2X+ mips missing", white "Good data", green "2X+ extra mips" (Unreal Engine documentation: Building Texture Streaming Data in Unreal…). They are not a strict texel-density checker, but they show where textures are too big or too small for how they are seen.

#Examples

Different viewsStrict uniform density, or deliberate exceptions?

Strict. In the 2024 Polycount thread, the original poster summarised the common rule that "except for unique objects, the meshes in the map need to have consistent Texel Density" (Polycount: Texel Density Standards for AAA First-Person…). Beyond Extent frames density as the tool that keeps a scene cohesive (Beyond Extent: Texel Density).

Flexible. PixelMasher writes that "the first mindset to break here is the fact there are hard and fast 'rules'", and Epitaph that density "can be flexible and doesn't always have to be spot on" (Polycount: Creating Trim Sheets 4 Part Tutorial…). Benjammin argues for detail textures and layering instead of raising resolution everywhere (Polycount: Texel Density Standards for AAA First-Person…).

In practice: set one target and keep everything within roughly ±25% of it (Beyond Extent: Texel Density). Then break it deliberately for what the player sees closest and longest (weapons, hero props, landmarks) and for what they never see (bottoms and backs). Write every exception down so the team makes the same choices.

#Common mistakes

Deciding per asset. Without a shared target, every artist picks a different texture size.
Scaling connected islands separately, which makes parts of one piece look sharper than others (Polycount: Are these UVs good?).
Ignoring the camera. A top-down game at first-person density wastes memory.
Mixing up px/cm and px/m. 10.24 px/cm and 1024 px/m are the same; 10.24 px/m is a hundred times less.

#Further reading and watching

Beyond Extent: Texel Density deep dive

clear introduction with exceptions and the ±25% trim guideline. Beginner, free.

WebBeginnerFree

Polycount: Trim sheet tutorial thread

PixelMasher's first- and third-person rules of thumb and a debate on how strict to be. Intermediate, free.

ForumIntermediateFree

Texel Density Checker on GitHub

the free Blender add-on most artists use. Beginner, free.

WebBeginnerFree

Unreal Engine: Building Texture Streaming Data

what the streaming accuracy view modes show. Intermediate, free.

DocsIntermediateFree

Huge Menace: Texel Density Masterclass

picking a target and applying it in Blender. Beginner, free.

VideoBeginnerFree

EMC3D: How To Achieve Consistent Texel Density In 3D Environment Art (Simplified)

a simplified take aimed at environment artists. Beginner, free.

VideoBeginnerFree

The environment-art view of texel density, from a channel whose game breakdowns (God of War, Naughty Dog, Hogwarts Legacy) are worth watching too. Watch on YouTube

Walks through choosing a target texel density and applying it in Blender; watch alongside the worked numbers above. Watch on YouTube

References

Timothy Dries · Texel Density (deep dive) · Beyond Extent, 2022 · article · accessed 2026-10-21

Polycount forum (PixelMasher, CrackRockSteady, Epitaph and others) · Creating Trim Sheets 4 Part Tutorial - Polygon Academy (thread) · Polycount, 2019 · forum · accessed 2026-10-21

Polycount forum (luan05367, Benjammin) · Texel Density Standards for AAA First-Person Shooter Games? · Polycount, 2024 · forum · accessed 2026-10-21

Matthew Trevelyan Johns · The Last of Us: Part I...Trim Pipeline · ArtStation · web · accessed 2026-10-21

Alex Bes · Game Ready Japanese Plastic Signs 02 · Sketchfab · web · accessed 2026-10-22

Epic Games · Understanding Lightmapping in Unreal Engine · Unreal Engine documentation · docs · accessed 2026-10-21

mrven · Blender Addon: Texel Density Checker · GitHub · tool · accessed 2026-10-21

Blender Foundation · Editing (UV Editor tools) · Blender Manual (3.6), 2023 · docs · accessed 2026-10-21

Autodesk forum (rouslan.bordug, Sean Heasley) · Problem with Texel Density tool · Autodesk Community, 2019 · forum · accessed 2026-10-21

Arti Sergeev · Meet RizomUV 2022 · 80 Level, 2021 · article · accessed 2026-10-21

Epic Games · Building Texture Streaming Data in Unreal Engine · Unreal Engine documentation · docs · accessed 2026-10-21

Epic Games · Viewport Modes in Unreal Engine · Unreal Engine documentation · docs · accessed 2026-10-21

Polycount forum (darkchief117, DWalker and others) · Reducing UV Waste Need Help · Polycount, 2014 · forum · accessed 2026-10-21

Polycount forum (cookedpeanut and others) · Are these UVs good? · Polycount, 2015 · forum · accessed 2026-10-21

EMC3D - Game Art · How To Achieve Consistent Texel Density In 3D Environment Art (Simplified) · YouTube · video · accessed 2026-10-21

Also consulted