What are mipmaps?
Pre-shrunk copies of a texture (each half the size of the last) that the GPU uses when the texture is drawn small or far away, to avoid shimmering.
They cost about a third more memory and matter most for 3D textures seen at a distance. For 2D pixel art drawn at a fixed scale they are usually unnecessary and can blur. In WebGL 1, mipmaps (and repeat wrapping) need power-of-two texture sizes; WebGL 2 relaxes this.
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Related terms
- Seamless (tileable) textureA texture whose left edge continues into its right edge and top into bottom, so it can repeat across a surface with no visible seam.
- Texture atlasA single large texture packing many unrelated images (icons, UI pieces, props) so the game can draw them without switching textures.