I have trees in my game, and the leaves are a single, translucent MeshPart. The reason why they are translucent is because the texture has transparency, and the MeshPart needs to be a bit translucent so the texture background also appears transparent (if that makes sense).
I have also discovered a SurfaceAppearance with the Overlay property on Transparency does a similar effect to this while the MeshPart transparency is 0 instead of transparent.
With these in mind, I know that a translucent BasePart is more performance demanding than an opaque/transparent BasePart. However, on the other hand, I do not know how performant demanding a SurfaceAppearance is.
Which is better for performance? A translucent MeshPart with texture, or a transparency overlay SurfaceAppearance with an opaque MeshPart?
Easiest way to test is just duplicate/clone a mesh 10,000 times for example then look at the performance difference between transparency and with an overlay.
My guess is they would be very similar overhead, but have not tested. As in both cases the engine still has to render the model and what is behind it
nononono you do not want translucent meshparts!! They’re sooo much laggier!
Please switch all of your 0.05 transparency mesh leaves to surface appearances with a 0 transparency
Anything thats translucent costs much more performance than anything opaque, so if you can, stay clear!
and we love surface appearances, use them
I’ve compared and it has proven its performance. So I absolutely do not recommend changing the transparency of MeshPart, you’re only making it worse for yourself.