Most environments use modular textures, that is they reuse textures on mass. Only exception which comes to mind is id tech5 (game: rage), which use virtual textures (called mega textures). The process of reducing the qualtiy of a texture is called mipmapping. Normalmaps are a special case, because high-frequency textures would result to light-flickering in the distance. Toning them down by either a clever use of mipmapping or turning off expensive shaders, is a valid option.

If mipmapping is not enough, you need 2 samplers and an interpolation value (ie. time dependent or depth from a g-buffer) to blend between the textures. But this technique makes only sense when streaming in hi-detail textures, if the hi-detail texture is present, use mipmapping.

Most environments use modular textures, that is they reuse textures on mass. Only exception which comes to mind is id tech5 (game: rage), which use virtual textures (called mega textures). The process of reducing the qualtiy of a texture is called mipmapping. Normalmaps are a special case, because high-frequency textures would result to light-flickering in the distance. Toning them down by either a clever use of mipmapping or turning off expensive shaders, is a valid option.

If mipmapping is not enough, you need 2 samplers and an interpolation value (ie. depth from a g-buffer) to blend between the textures. But this technique makes only sense when streaming in hi-detail textures, if the hi-detail texture is present, use mipmapping.

Most environments use modular textures, that is they reuse textures on mass. Only exception which comes to mind is id tech5 (game: rage), which use virtual textures (called mega textures). The process of reducing the qualtiy of a texture is called mipmapping. Normalmaps are a special case, because high-frequency textures would result to light-flickering in the distance. Toning them down by either a clever use of mipmapping or turning off expensive shaders, is a valid option.