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Compression

KTX2 Compression Settings

Fine-tune how textures are encoded when KTX2 Format is selected in the Output section.

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These settings appear only when Texture Format is set to KTX2 Format. KTX2 uses Basis Universal encoding to create textures that decompress directly on the GPU — reducing video memory usage compared to PNG or JPEG without any CPU decompression overhead at runtime.

Quality

Controls the overall quality level of the KTX2 encoding.

Setting File size Quality Use case
Low Smallest Lower Less-important textures, large atlases
Medium Balanced Good Most assets (default)
High Larger Better Hero assets and close-up surfaces
Maximum Largest Best Key assets where size is not a concern

Format

Selects the Basis Universal encoding mode used inside the KTX2 container.

Format File size Quality Best for
ETC1S Smaller Lower Color maps, large atlases, UI textures
UASTC Larger Higher Normal maps, metallic/roughness, hero color
ASTC 4×4 Varies High Mobile hardware with native ASTC support
None No GPU compression Lossless Archiving, or runtimes that need raw KTX2

Practical guidance:

  • Use ETC1S for color textures where subtle compression differences are acceptable
  • Use UASTC for any data texture — normal, roughness, metallic — where precision matters
  • When a material uses both color and data textures, encode them separately using UASTC for data and ETC1S for color if your pipeline allows it

Supercompression

Default: On

Applies Zstandard file-level compression on top of the KTX2 output. This reduces the download size of the .ktx2 files without affecting how the GPU decompresses them at runtime.

  • Leave this on in almost all cases — it reduces size with no quality cost
  • Turn it off only if a specific tool in your pipeline cannot read Zstandard-compressed KTX2

Generate Mipmaps

Default: On

Automatically generates mip levels for each exported texture.

  • Mipmaps improve rendering quality and performance when objects appear at varying distances from the camera
  • Leave this on for any texture used on a 3D surface in a real-time viewer
  • Turn it off only for textures shown at a fixed size (for example, UI elements or a flat screen)