Mesh

A mesh is a collection of render chunks, an optional skeleton, often some attachment points and potentially other metadata. It is stored in a mesh file.

Impact on Performance

The performance impact of each mesh is the sum of its component render chunks plus the cost of any per-mesh animation that may be playing. A small CPU cost is paid for recalculating any attachment points whenever the mesh moves or animates.

There are few optimization techniques relating to meshes themselves. Instead, focus on optimizing the various components:

• avoid splitting meshes unnecessarily. Consider combining smaller components together to make a single mesh.
• reduce the number of render chunks.
• reduce the polygon counts.
• minimize texture size.
• consider a texture atlas or other forms of material sharing.
• don't use animation or a skeleton where they are not strictly necessary.
• unless the animation is visible at extreme distances (for example, a large crane) you should be able to turn off the animation at a certain distance and omit the skeleton on mesh LODs beyond that distance.