Textures

Three related asset types share the same construction pattern: Texture (2D), TextureArray (2D array, one file/buffer per layer), and Cubemap (six equal-size faces, wgpu’s +X, -X, +Y, -Y, +Z, -Z order). This page covers Texture; the other two differ only in shape.

fn setup(backend: Read<Backend>, mut textures: Write<Assets<Texture>>) {
    let from_disk = Texture::from_file("assets/albedo.png")
        .with_mips()
        .build_asset("albedo", &mut textures);

    let from_pixels = Texture::from_data(256, 256, TextureFormat::Rgba8Unorm, pixel_bytes)
        .build_asset("noise", &mut textures);

    let render_target = Texture::empty(1920, 1080, TextureFormat::Rgba16Float)
        .build_asset("bloom_buffer", &mut textures);
}

• from_file(path) — decoded from disk on upload. Supports the regular 8/16/32-bit unorm and float formats, not block-compressed or multi-planar ones.
• from_data(width, height, format, bytes) — from an in-memory buffer you already have.
• empty(width, height, format) — no source data at all: a render target (post-processing, shadow maps), or something you’ll write() yourself.
• .with_mips() — generates a full GPU-side mip chain. .with_mip_count(n) generates exactly n levels instead (e.g. for a PBR prefilter pass).

CPU-side access

data() returns the CPU-side pixels — only ever Some for a from_data() texture, since from_file() re-decodes from disk on each upload rather than keeping a copy. release_cpu_data() frees that copy; unlike Mesh, a released texture can still be re-uploaded later, it just comes back empty instead of with its original contents.

Writing into a texture at runtime

The uploaded GPUTexture has write(mip_level, pixels) to overwrite one mip level — for a texture you’re streaming or rendering into from the CPU side — and get_view(mip_level) for binding a specific level (e.g. as a render target during mip generation).

Texture arrays and cubemaps

TextureArray::from_files(vec!["a.png", "b.png", "c.png"]).build_asset("atlas", &mut arrays);
Cubemap::from_files(1024, [px, nx, py, ny, pz, nz]).build_asset("sky", &mut cubemaps);

GPUTextureArray::write_layer/GPUCubemap::write_face mirror GPUTexture::write, with an extra layer/face index. get_view similarly takes a layer or face alongside the mip level.