---
title: "Texture Compression: KTX2, ETC1S, UASTC & WebP"
description: Choose the right texture compression format for your Needle Engine project. Compare ETC1S, UASTC, and WebP for file size, GPU memory, and quality. Configure per-texture overrides in Unity and Blender.
---

# Texture Compression

:::tip Optimization & Compression
This guide is part of [Optimization & Compression](/docs/how-to-guides/optimization/). See also: [Mesh Compression](/docs/how-to-guides/optimization/compress-meshes), [Progressive Loading & LODs](/docs/how-to-guides/optimization/progressive-loading-and-lods), [Build Settings](/docs/how-to-guides/optimization/production-build-settings).
:::

Production builds compress textures using **KTX2** (ETC1S or UASTC) or **WebP** depending on your settings and quality requirements.

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## Choosing Between ETC1S, UASTC and WebP

| Format | ETC1S | UASTC | WebP |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **GPU Memory Usage** | Low | Low | High (uncompressed) |
| **File Size** | Low | High | Very low |
| **Quality** | Medium | Very high | Depends on quality setting |
| **Typical usage** | Works for everything, best for color textures | High-detail data textures: normal maps, roughness, metallic | Files where ETC1S quality is insufficient but UASTC is too large |

**Quick Guide:**
- **Color textures, UI**: Use ETC1S for small file size
- **Normal maps, detail textures**: Use UASTC for maximum quality
- **Photography, detailed textures**: Use WebP if ETC1S quality isn't sufficient

---

## Setting Compression Per Texture

You can override compression settings for individual textures — including compression format, maximum resolution, and progressive LOD generation — without changing the global defaults. This means you don't need to turn off features like progressive loading globally just because one or two textures need different settings.

:::details Unity: Global compression settings
The **Compression and LOD Settings** component on the Needle Engine / ExportInfo object controls the default compression and LOD settings for all textures in the export:

![Unity Compression Settings](/imgs/unity-compression-settings.png)

![Unity Compression and LOD Settings](/imgs/unity-compression-and-lod-settings.webp "2x")
:::

:::details Unity: Per-texture compression and LOD overrides
On the same **Compression and LOD Settings** component, use the per-texture overrides section to customize individual textures. Assign any texture you want to override and configure:
- **Compression format** — Choose between Automatic, ETC1S, UASTC, or WebP per texture
- **Max size** — Limit the maximum resolution for specific textures (e.g. 1024 instead of 8192)
- **LOD generation** — Enable or disable progressive texture LOD generation per texture

This is useful when most textures work great with the defaults, but a few need special handling — for example, disabling LODs for a small UI texture, or forcing UASTC on an important normal map.

![Unity Individual Texture Settings](/imgs/unity-compression-settings-individual.png)
:::

:::details Blender: Per-texture compression overrides
Per-texture compression settings are available in two places:

**Needle Object panel** (Viewport Sidebar → Needle Object tab): At the bottom of the panel, the **Material Settings** section lists all textures used by the object's materials with inline compression overrides (max size, compression format). This is a quick way to see and adjust all textures for an object at once.

![Blender Needle Object panel with Material Settings and per-texture compression](/blender/needle-object-settings.webp "2x")

**Properties panel → Material tab → Needle Material Settings**: Each texture used by the selected material is listed with an override toggle. Enable the override to customize:
- **Max Size** — Limit the maximum resolution for that texture
- **Compression format** — Choose between Auto, None, ETC1S, UASTC, or WebP
- **Quality** — Adjust WebP quality (when using WebP compression)

The following screenshots show the per-texture compression options in the Blender material panel:

![Blender Per-Texture Compression Settings](/blender/texture-compression-per-texture.webp "2x")

![Blender Texture Compression Options with Tooltip](/blender/texture-compression-per-texture-options.webp "2x")
:::

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## Related Documentation

- **[Progressive Loading & LODs](/docs/how-to-guides/optimization/progressive-loading-and-lods)** — Texture LODs, mesh LODs, and per-texture LOD overrides
- **[Mesh Compression](/docs/how-to-guides/optimization/compress-meshes)** — Draco & Meshopt compression
- **[Production Build Settings](/docs/how-to-guides/optimization/production-build-settings)** — Build types and build window
- **[gltf-progressive](/docs/gltf-progressive/)** — Progressive loading for any three.js project