Creating materials for mobile platforms

When developing materials for mobile platforms, there are some things that we need to be aware of related to performance. Due to a number of limitations with the hardware, the materials that we create for it need to be more humble, in terms of the effects that we can enable and the fidelity of the resources that we can use within it. As you spend more time building materials for mobile devices, you will discover that there are often trade-offs that are required, such as reducing complexity for the sake of your application size or frame rate. In this recipe, we will explore some of the limitations inherent to these platforms by creating a simple material that could be used on those devices, while also discussing different settings that we can take advantage of.

Getting ready

Any textures that you want to use on mobile platforms need to have a resolution of 2,048 x 2,048 or lower, preferably a square texture to the power of 2 (64, 128, 256...