Draw calls & prefabs

[DavidT]

My paranoia tells me to keep draw calls down wherever possible. I noticed that as I instantiate multiple copies of the same prefab in code, my draw calls go up (typically by 2 for each new object due to the shader I'm using).

So, if I have a Gauntlet or Robotron style game where I'm spawining lots of objects from the same prefab, how do I keep my draw calls down to a reasonable number?

[tonyd]

If your objects share the same material, dynamic batching should reduce their draw calls down to 1 (or 2, in your case).

[steddyman]

This is only true if your meshes contain less than 300 verts That is the maximum number of verts that dynamic batching operates on.

[Eric5h5]

Since this isn't posted in the iPhone section, I'd assume the question is about Unity, which has no dynamic batching.

--Eric

[DavidT]

Eric you're correct. Although I'll eventually be targeting iPhone, I'm getting up to speed with regular Unity first. So this question is for regular Unity.

I'm still unsure what to do if I want to instantiate lots of low poly (think cubes) objects from within code and keep my draw calls down to something sensible.