# Objective
An attempt to start building a base for first-party tilemaps (#13782).
The objective is to create a very simple tilemap chunk rendering plugin
that can be used as a building block for 3rd-party tilemap crates, and
eventually a first-party tilemap implementation.
## Solution
- Introduces two user-facing components, `TilemapChunk` and
`TilemapChunkIndices`, and a new material `TilemapChunkMaterial`.
- `TilemapChunk` holds the chunk and tile sizes, and the tileset image
- The tileset image is expected to be a layered image for use with
`texture_2d_array`, with the assumption that atlases or multiple images
would go through an asset loader/processor. Not sure if that should be
part of this PR or not..
- `TilemapChunkIndices` holds a 1d representation of all of the tile's
Option<u32> index into the tileset image.
- Indices are fixed to the size of tiles in a chunk (though maybe this
should just be an assertion instead?)
- Indices are cloned and sent to the shader through a u32 texture.
## Testing
- Initial testing done with the `tilemap_chunk` example, though I need
to include some way to update indices as part of it.
- Tested wasm with webgl2 and webgpu
- I'm thinking it would probably be good to do some basic perf testing.
---
## Showcase
```rust
let chunk_size = UVec2::splat(64);
let tile_size = UVec2::splat(16);
let indices: Vec<Option<u32>> = (0..chunk_size.x * chunk_size.y)
.map(|_| rng.gen_range(0..5))
.map(|i| if i == 0 { None } else { Some(i - 1) })
.collect();
commands.spawn((
TilemapChunk {
chunk_size,
tile_size,
tileset,
},
TilemapChunkIndices(indices),
));
```
