Chapter 1: Texture/Material Budgets & Atlases

Created by Sarah Choi (prompt writer using ChatGPT)

Texture & Material Budgets & Atlases

For Costume Concept Artists Working on Optimization & Accessibility

When you design costumes for a modern game, you’re not just painting a pretty surface—you’re deciding how much visual information the engine can afford to show, and who will be able to see it clearly. Under the hood, every strap, stitch, emblem and fabric weave becomes:

  • Texture memory on a GPU
  • A material/shader that must be evaluated
  • A chunk of data loaded on everything from high‑end PCs to old consoles or mobile devices

Texture and material budgets are how the team keeps that under control. Atlases are how they pack multiple pieces into fewer, more efficient textures. As a costume concept artist, your visual decisions can make those budgets easier—or painfully harder—to hit.

This article is written equally for:

  • Concept‑side costume artists (early exploration, key art, pitch pages)
  • Production‑side costume artists (final design packs, callouts, vendor briefs)

We’ll focus on texture/material budgets and atlases in the context of Optimization & Accessibility, especially around:

  • Budgets – staying within texture, material, and draw‑call limits
  • Readability – making sure your costumes read clearly at real game distances
  • Inclusion – designing so more players (different hardware, visual abilities, cultures) can enjoy your work

You don’t need to be a tech artist or programmer to contribute. But understanding the constraints lets you make costume designs that are both beautiful and shippable.

1. Why Texture & Material Budgets Matter (In Plain Language)

Every character on screen costs GPU time and memory. The more textures and materials they use, the more expensive they become. Multiply that by:

  • 4 heroes
  • 20 enemies
  • A crowd of NPCs
  • Plus weapons, VFX, and environment

…and you can see why the team needs budgets.

Typical constraints you’ll hear about:

  • Max texture memory per character (e.g., total MB for diffuse/albedo, normal, masks)
  • Max number of materials per character (each material may be a draw call)
  • Max texture resolution per slot or per LOD

If your costume ideas always need new, unique, high‑res textures and fancy materials, tech art and character art will have to:

  • Down‑res your details until they blur away
  • Strip unique materials into generic ones
  • Or cut the costume entirely for performance reasons

But if you design with budgets in mind, you can:

  • Reuse atlases and trim sheets across multiple costumes
  • Make bold designs that stay crisp even when downscaled
  • Help the game run smoothly on more devices, which is a big deal for accessibility and inclusion

2. Texture & Material Basics for Costume Concept Artists

You don’t need to memorize engine documentation, but having a mental model helps.

2.1 Textures: The 2D Images on 3D Models

Textures are just images mapped onto 3D surfaces. Common types:

  • Albedo/Base Color – the “painted” color without lighting
  • Normal Map – fake small‑scale bumps and sculpted detail
  • Roughness/Metalness – how shiny or metallic something appears
  • Masks – grayscale or colored maps that control where different materials/colors appear

Each one takes up space. Higher resolution = crisper detail, but more memory.

2.2 Materials & Shaders: How the Surface Behaves

A material or shader is a combination of:

  • Texture inputs
  • Shader logic
  • Parameters like color tints, fresnel, emissive strength

The more complex the shader (holograms, parallax, animated patterns, layered blending), the more expensive it is.

Your design choices influence:

  • How many different materials are needed (leather vs metal vs cloth vs glass)
  • How complex they are (simple PBR vs multi‑layered glitter, translucency, animated emissives)

2.3 Atlases: Many Things in One Texture

A texture atlas is a big texture that holds multiple smaller textures or pieces:

  • Entire outfits or armor sets packed onto one sheet
  • Decals (logos, numbers) tiled together
  • Trim sheets used across many costumes

Atlases reduce:

  • Texture swaps
  • Draw calls
  • Overall memory footprint

As a concept artist, you can support atlases by designing reusable patterns and materials rather than unique, one‑off details on every square centimeter.

3. Budgets: How Much Texture & Material Your Costume Can Afford

Budget specifics differ per project, but the ideas are similar. You might hear:

  • “We get X materials per hero.”
  • “We need costumes that fit into two or three 2K atlases, not six.”
  • “We’re targeting mobile, so materials and textures must be ultra‑lean.”

3.1 Think in “Material Families” Instead of One‑Off Surfaces

Instead of designing:

  • 12 completely different metals
  • 7 unrelated fabrics
  • 4 unique leathers

…aim for material families:

  • 1–2 leather types (smooth vs rugged)
  • 1–2 cloth types (matte vs satin)
  • 1 metal family (brushed/ornate variants)

As a concept artist, you can show this by:

  • Keeping specular/roughness personalities consistent across a set
  • Labeling fabric types clearly in callouts (e.g., “matte cotton‑like cloth”, “lightly glossy silk‑like strip”)

This lets production use one material definition for many surfaces, saving budget.

3.2 Reserve “Expensive” Materials for High‑Impact Areas

Some materials are costlier to render:

  • Animated emissives
  • Complex holograms
  • Transparent layers (gauze, glass, energy shields)

Use these sparingly on focal points:

  • Signature chest emblem
  • Glowing eyes or gems
  • A few key trim lines

Avoid turning the entire outfit into a shimmering, translucent, animated light show. It may look cool in a painting, but in‑engine it can destroy performance and readability.

3.3 Support LODs With Sensible Detail Density

Lower Levels of Detail (LODs) use smaller textures and simplified geometry. That means:

  • Micro‑patterns will blur or break up
  • Tiny decals will vanish
  • Overly busy surfaces will become mushy

If your high‑res concept relies on tiny, intricate patterns everywhere, the LOD versions will lose their identity. Instead:

  • Make sure primary shapes and value blocks carry the design
  • Use small‑scale texture only to support, not define, the look

You’re designing not just for a beauty shot, but for playable distances.

4. Readability: Designing for Real Camera Distances

Optimization and readability are tightly connected. When the game camera pulls out, the engine downsamples textures, applies mipmaps, and compresses detail. If your costume design was all fine pattern, it turns into visual noise.

4.1 Design for Three Distances

When concepting, think in roughly three views:

  1. Far read (gameplay camera) – Can you read the silhouette and major color blocks?
  2. Mid read (closer interactions, emotes, small cutscenes) – Do the major material changes and decals read clearly?
  3. Near read (character inspect, key art) – Do fine details reward inspection without contradicting the simpler reads?

Ask yourself at each stage:

  • What survives at a distance?
  • Is anything purely “detail for detail’s sake” that will just become compression noise?

4.2 Value & Contrast for Clarity

Even if textures are down‑res’d or compressed, value and color contrast still do heavy lifting.

For clarity and accessibility:

  • Use value grouping: big areas of similar value with purposeful, clear breaks
  • Avoid making everything mid‑value with subtle variation—this muddies the read
  • Reserve highest contrast for gameplay‑relevant or identity‑relevant zones (team colors, faction marks, role indicators)

Players with reduced vision, smaller screens, or poor lighting conditions will rely heavily on these big value and color differences.

4.3 Pattern Scale vs Aliasing

Highly dense patterns (micro‑stripes, tiny checks, tightly spaced motifs) can cause:

  • Aliasing (shimmering as the camera moves)
  • Visual discomfort or distraction

You can prevent that by:

  • Using larger pattern repeats on big surfaces
  • Keeping small‑scale noise to areas where it won’t dominate the frame
  • Simplifying patterns in important readability zones (face, chest emblem, team markings)

Call this out in your notes:

“Cloak pattern: medium‑scale repeat. Please avoid very fine stripe frequencies to prevent shimmer at distance.”

5. Atlases: Designing Costumes to Pack Well

A texture atlas is like a suitcase for visual information. If you fold your design elements smartly, more can fit in.

5.1 Common Atlas Types in Costume Work

You might encounter:

  • Character/Set Atlases – one or a few large textures for the whole outfit
  • Trim Sheets – long strips of reusable detail (stitches, seams, metal borders)
  • Decal Atlases – collections of logos, numbers, badges in one texture
  • Palette/Masks Atlases – maps used for color swaps or material splits

As a concept artist you can support these by thinking in reusable chunks:

  • Repeated trims that can live in a trim sheet
  • Modular armor panels that share the same detailing
  • Decal sets that can be reused across multiple costumes or factions

5.2 Designing for Trim Sheets

A trim sheet is a single texture with multiple bands of detail that can be wrapped around models. For costumes, this might include:

  • Fabric edge with stitching
  • Metal rim with engraved motif
  • Leather strap with small repeated pattern

In your concepts:

  • Show trims as repeatable strips, not one‑off details
  • Indicate that multiple parts share the same trim type

Example callout:

  • “Gold engraved trim on pauldrons, vambraces, and belt all use the same trim type (see TrimSheet_A Row 2).”

This lets modelers unwrap those edges to the same band in the trim sheet instead of needing separate texture space for each.

5.3 Designing for Decal Atlases

Decals (logos, symbols, numbers) are perfect atlas content. Your job:

  • Design them as clean, vector‑like shapes that can be scaled reasonably
  • Avoid hyper‑detailed micro‑patterns inside small logos
  • Group them conceptually so they can live together (e.g., “Team A Logos Set”, “Faction X Religious Symbols”)

On your decal overview sheet:

  • Show all decals in one grid
  • Label them with names that match the internal atlas IDs

This helps UI, character art, and tech art all understand what lives together and how to reuse them.

5.4 Avoid Atlas Fragmentation Through Design Discipline

If every costume demands a new, full, uniquely laid‑out atlas, your project will:

  • Blow up memory usage
  • Lose benefits of reuse

You can help avoid this by:

  • Reusing existing material families and trims when appropriate
  • Designing new sets to share some structural logic with older ones
  • Coordinating with production artists and tech art about which atlases already exist

You’re helping build a shared visual language, not a completely bespoke one each time.

6. Inclusion & Accessibility: Designing for More Players

Optimization is part of accessibility: if your game runs better on more hardware, more people can play. But accessibility also includes how easily people can actually see and distinguish elements.

6.1 Color & Contrast for Different Vision Profiles

Not all players see color and value the same way. To support them:

  • Don’t rely on color alone to communicate important information (e.g., red vs green team without shape or pattern differences)
  • Use shape language and pattern cues alongside color (e.g., triangles vs circles, banded vs plain)
  • Avoid extremely low contrast for critical elements like team markings or interactable gear

As a costume concept artist, you can:

  • Provide alternate colorways that keep team colors distinct even for color‑blind players
  • Ensure team or role identifiers combine color + shape + placement (e.g., diamond badge vs circle badge, different pattern on shoulder)

6.2 Skin‑Tone Harmony & Inclusive Material Choices

Textures and materials interact strongly with skin tones. Over‑shiny skin or poorly chosen base color can:

  • Make certain skin tones appear ashy, plastic, or washed out
  • Hide facial features at distance because of low contrast

You can:

  • Test your costume’s color and value choices across a range of skin tones (at least light, medium, dark)
  • Ensure that facial and hand regions maintain enough contrast against nearby costume pieces

This is both an aesthetic and inclusion concern: you’re making sure all players’ avatars read clearly and respectfully.

6.3 Avoiding Visually Overwhelming Surfaces

For some players (especially those with sensory sensitivities or certain neurological conditions), extremely busy, pulsating, or high‑contrast flickering patterns can be:

  • Distracting or fatiguing
  • In rare cases, trigger discomfort

You can mitigate this by:

  • Reserving animated emissive or “noisy” patterns for small areas
  • Using smoother, broader gradients for larger surfaces
  • Avoiding rapid high‑frequency patterns on constantly moving areas (e.g., knees, elbows, breastplates during combat)

6.4 Hardware Inclusion: Low‑Spec & Small Screens

Players on low‑spec hardware or small screens (handhelds, mobile) will see:

  • Lower resolutions
  • More aggressive compression
  • Smaller on‑screen characters

Design so that even when textures are downscaled:

  • The costume’s identity, role, and team are clear
  • Critical decals (team emblem, class icon) are simple and bold, not tiny and intricate

You can simulate this mentally or by quickly zooming out from your painting and asking: “What still reads?”

7. Concrete Ways Concept‑Side Artists Can Help

Even in early blue‑sky exploration, you can steer toward optimization and accessibility.

7.1 Use Material Legends on Your Concept Sheets

On each page (or at least each set), include a small material legend:

  • Swatches labeled with intended material type (cloth, leather, metal, emissive)
  • Notes on roughness/gloss level
  • Indication of which ones are reused from other sets

Example:

  • “Leather A (shared with Ranger set)”
  • “Metal B (same as Knight base armor, slightly warmer tint)”

This hints at reuse and informs production about where they can share materials and atlases.

7.2 Annotate Priority of Detail

On your callouts, mark:

  • Primary read areas (must remain highest fidelity)
  • Secondary and tertiary details (OK to compress or simplify)

Example notes:

  • “Chest emblem: high‑priority detail; keep crisp at gameplay distance.”
  • “Leg panel texture: secondary; fine pattern can be simplified at low LOD.”

This helps tech art and character art allocate texture resolution wisely.

7.3 Flag Potentially Expensive Ideas Early

If you know you’re proposing:

  • Fully animated holographic cloak
  • Complex layered transparency and refraction
  • Large‑scale animated patterns

…add a note like:

  • “FX‑heavy concept – may require special shader; OK to fall back to static emissive if budget is tight.”

This shows you understand constraints and gives the team permission to degrade gracefully if needed.

8. Concrete Ways Production‑Side Artists Can Help

Production‑side costume artists sit closer to actual tools and budgets. Your documentation can be even more explicit.

8.1 Tie Concepts to Actual Atlas & Material Layouts

Once atlases and materials are defined, update concept packs to show:

  • Which parts of the costume map to which atlas regions
  • Which trims correspond to which trim sheet rows
  • Where decals live in the decal atlas

You can add mini diagrams:

  • Simple UV layout sketches with labels like “Chest armor uses Atlas_Hero01_SetA region 3”

8.2 Keep a Running “Material Budget” Sidebar

In your final design doc or page set, include a summary panel:

  • Number of materials used
  • Material types and their reuse (e.g., “Metal_01 shared with 3 other hero sets”)
  • Texture sets used (e.g., “Atlas_CharactersHero_02, TrimSheet_ArmorGold_01, DecalAtlas_FactionA_01”)

This makes it easy for tech art and production to sanity‑check costs.

8.3 Document LOD Intent

Even if you’re not the one building LODs, you can note:

  • Which details should be baked down into normal maps
  • Which decals can disappear at lower LODs
  • Which elements must remain distinct even as detail drops

Example:

  • “At LOD2+, remove small belt pouches and minor stitching; keep chest emblem and team shoulder marking.”

This gives a design‑driven guide for simplification.

9. Shared Language Between Concept & Downstream Teams

Budgets and atlases are easier when everyone uses consistent terms. As a costume concept artist, you can help anchor that language.

Useful shared vocab:

  • Texel density – how many pixels per meter of surface
  • Trim sheet – reusable strip‑based atlas for edges and bands
  • Decal – projected or mapped logo/pattern
  • Material family – a set of surfaces sharing shader and texture properties
  • Priority detail – must stay sharp at game distance

Use these terms in your notes and reviews. Over time, concept and tech discussions become clearer and faster.

10. Final Thoughts: Designing for Beauty, Performance & People

Texture and material budgets, atlases, optimization, accessibility—these might seem far from the joy of drawing costumes. But in a real game pipeline, they’re deeply connected.

When you:

  • Build costumes around reusable material families instead of one‑off textures
  • Design details that survive downscaling and real gameplay camera distances
  • Structure your patterns and decals to pack into atlases cleanly
  • Consider hardware variety, visual abilities, and skin‑tone inclusion in your decisions

…you’re not just making cool outfits. You’re making costumes that more players can experience, clearly and comfortably, across more devices and over the entire life of the game.

That blend—visual artistry + technical empathy + inclusive thinking—is what separates a good costume concept artist from a truly production‑ready, pipeline‑friendly one. And downstream teams will absolutely feel the difference in every smoother sprint, easier optimization pass, and clearer in‑game read your work enables.