Textures & lighting
Texel Density Calculator
Direct answer
Texel density is how many texture pixels cover one unit of surface. Divide texture resolution by surface size: a 2048 px texture on a 2 m wall gives 1024 px/m, or 10.24 px/cm, the value most shipped games standardise on. Enter your numbers below to check any asset against that standard.
The square edge length. For a 2048x2048 texture, enter 2048.
How much real-world surface one full tile of the texture spans.
10.24 px/cm is the common standard for playable environment art.
Result
- Texel density
- —px/cm
- Same value per metre
- —px/m
- Against your target
- —
- Resolution to hit the target
- —px
- Rounded up to a power of two
- —px
Method & assumptions
How this is worked out
Texel density is a division, nothing more: density = resolution / surface size. The only thing that trips people up is units. A 2048 px texture stretched across 2 m is 1024 px per metre; divide by 100 and you get 10.24 px per centimetre, which is how most engines and artists talk about it.
The resolution you need for a target density is the same equation rearranged: resolution = target x size x 100. Textures are then rounded up to the next power of two, because that is what GPUs sample most efficiently and what compression formats expect.
The density values shipped games standardise on
| Use case | px/cm | px/m | Texture for a 2 m surface |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mobile and low-end | 2.56 | 256 | 512 px |
| Large stylised environments | 5.12 | 512 | 1024 px |
| Standard playable environment art | 10.24 | 1024 | 2048 px |
| Hero props, anything the camera lingers on | 20.48 | 2048 | 4096 px |
| First-person hands and weapons | 40.96 | 4096 | 8192 px |
These are powers of two per metre, which is why the numbers look odd in centimetres. Pick one for your project and hold every asset to it; the exact value matters far less than everyone using the same one.
Questions
What texel density should I use?
For a playable environment on PC or current-gen console, 10.24 px/cm (1024 px/m) is the safe default. Go up to 20.48 for hero assets the camera gets close to, and down to 5.12 for large background structures. Consistency matters more than the exact number.
Is texel density measured per centimetre or per metre?
Both are in use. Artists usually say px/cm, engines and documentation often use px/m. They differ by a factor of 100: 10.24 px/cm is the same as 1024 px/m.
Why do my assets look inconsistent even at the same resolution?
Because resolution alone says nothing. A 2048 px texture on a 1 m crate is four times denser than the same texture on a 4 m wall. Texel density is the number that makes them comparable, which is exactly why it exists.