Exclude loading a sprite before run-time, how to load sprites/textures on the fly?

Are there any ways to load sprites/textures on the fly? Without loading the sprite/texture before run-time using the inspector and using Texture Type -> Sprite(2D and UI) -> Apply?

Or is there a way to unload/load sprites/textures from memory during run-time?

We don’t want all the UI stuff in memory during the gameplay. Especially the huge background images.

Is there any information on how unity 4.6 handles the memory management of sprites/textures?

 

Unity only loads the textures needed to display the current game objects, and swaps textures in and out as needed, so just have then in your scene but hide them, they will get loaded when they are needed (they'll be in ram but not in GPU memory, if you don't want them to even be there, you'll have to script loading them)

 

I believe you need to use script

Resources.Load<Sprite>()

to load from Resources folder

 

So in unity 4.6, by adding images/sprites/textures using the system in the inspector -> Texture Type -> Sprite(2D and UI) -> Apply. Unity automatically unloads and loads these assets as needed during runtime?

For instance, I have a main menu with a bunch of UI elements such as text, buttons, and panels only for the main menu.

The main menu assets should be unloaded during Game play because they are only used on the main menu, so that they are not floating around in memory during game play. Does unity automatically do this? If not, how would i unload the assets that are not needed during game play.

Note : our game is being built in entirely one scene.

 

Sort of, they would exist in ram and would be referenced, but would not exist in GPU memory, which is generally where it counts as this is what really impacts performance. If you don't even want them in ram, use the resources and destroy them after you don't need them, but I'd guess, unless you graphics are huge fullscreen images, you'd be fine just turning them off.

 

If your game uses a lot of uncompressed sprites and you're targeting lowe-end mobile devices, just use the Resources.Load() to load your UI and Resources.UnloadUnusedAssets() once you destroy it. Just make sure you don't have any hard references to the sprites in your scene otherwise this will achieve nothing.

 

F

We have several huge background images, how would i remove these from memory? Looks like the Sprite atlas has to be setup before runtime... Maybe using asset bundles for these background images?

 

For the huge background images if they are just on the meun pages, put them in the resources and load / unload them, as lilboylost suggested, although, it sounds like you have pro, so I'd not worry yet and profile it, it's only worth worrying if it'll cause you a problem.

 

For future reference i got this to work. In the inspector "1_boot_screen_partners" Texture type is : Texture

Code (CSharp):

1. //load in the texture and have reference
2. Texture texture = Resources.Load<Texture>("Textures/UI/Logos/1_boot_screen_partners");
3.  
4. //create gameobject to hold rawimage which displays texture
5. testTexture = new GameObject("test Texture");
6.  
7. //use rawimage to display texture
8. RawImage rawTexture = testTexture.AddComponent<RawImage>();
9.  
10. //set loaded in texture to the rawimage
11. rawTexture.texture = texture;
12.  
13. //parent and scale and position
14. testTexture.transform.parent = mainCanvas.transform;
15. testTexture.transform.localScale = new Vector3(1, 1, 1);
16. testTexture.transform.localPosition = new Vector3(0, 0, 0);
17. rawTexture.SetNativeSize();