Textures

The renderer supports two texture dimensionalities - Texture2D for flat images and Texture3D / cubemaps for volumetric and environment data. Both are managed by ResourceManager and loaded asynchronously per backend.

Texture2D

A Texture2D wraps a single 2D image. Common uses include albedo maps, normal maps, roughness/metallic maps, and shadow map reads.

Registration

auto res = ResourceManager::get();

res->register_texture(Texture2DDescriptor::create("albedo", "textures/albedo.png"_engine));
res->register_texture(Texture2DDescriptor::create("normal", "textures/normal.png"_engine));

Descriptor Fields

Field	Type	Description
id	std::string	Unique identifier used to look up the texture
path	Path	Engine-relative path to the image file
format	TextureFormat	Pixel format (inferred from file if omitted)
generate_mipmaps	bool	Whether to build the full mip chain on upload
wrap	TextureWrap	UV wrapping mode (Repeat, ClampToEdge, etc.)
filter	TextureFilter	Sampling filter (Linear, Nearest)

Sampling in a Pass

Textures are bound through the active GraphicsPipeline or shader uniform:

auto* tex = ResourceManager::get()->get_texture2d("albedo");
pipeline->bind_texture(tex, /* slot */ 0);

Texture3D & Cubemaps

Texture3D covers both volumetric textures (e.g. LUT volumes) and cubemaps (six-face environment maps used by the skybox and IBL).

Cubemap Registration

res->register_texture(Texture3DDescriptor::create(
    "sky_cubemap",
    {
        "textures/skybox/right.png"_engine,
        "textures/skybox/left.png"_engine,
        "textures/skybox/top.png"_engine,
        "textures/skybox/bottom.png"_engine,
        "textures/skybox/front.png"_engine,
        "textures/skybox/back.png"_engine,
    }
));

Usage with Skybox

// In Scene::start()
auto* skybox = add_entity<Skybox>("Sky");
skybox->cubemap_id = "sky_cubemap";
skybox->shader_id  = "skybox_shader";
skybox->add_component<MeshComponent>();
skybox->add_component<ResourceComponent>();

SkyboxPass resolves the cubemap handle each frame and binds it as a samplerCube uniform.

Uploading

Both types are uploaded together with the rest of the descriptors:

res->load_from_descriptors<Texture2DDescriptor, Texture3DDescriptor>(
    RendererBackend::OpenGL
);

See Async Resource Loading for details on load states and generational handles.

Formats

Format	Usage
RGBA8	Standard color textures
RGBA16F	HDR color, render targets
DEPTH_ONLY	Shadow maps, depth prepass
R8	Single-channel masks, AO
RG16F	Normal maps (BC5 variant)