title: Unity grids: individual GameObjects for each cell vs. Mesh
body: <p>I'm new to Unity and I'm trying to implement a Sims-like room customization. I need a grid of squares, on which to place objects. I would also like to show the grid lines.</p>
  
  <p>I've looked around the web and these are the possible approaches I found:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>Each grid cell is an individual GameObject (plane). Easy to implement with two nested <strong>for</strong> cycles. Grid lines can be shown easily, since each tile can be textured individually.</p></li>
  <li><p>The grid is one single plane. A mesh is rendered over the plane. This is probably a more efficient approach than the above one, but how do I display the grid lines texture?</p></li>
  <li><p>The game is in 3D, but we can look at the room floor in 2D space. I'm wondering if it's a good idea to pretty much have a two-dimensional array of all of the tiles and calculate the coordinates of each tile. I won't even need a texture for the grid lines - they can be drawn over the plane, since I will know all of the coordinates needed.</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>First approach seems costly, but it's very popular on the web. The second approach is advertised as more efficient, but I'm having doubts that this might be an overkill for me, since I won't have terrain bumps and such. Third approach - I didn't see much on the Internet about it, but I have used it in old 2D OpenGL projects of mine.</p>
  
  <p>I'm trying to figure out what is the "Unity way" to do this. A lot of people have mentioned the second approach on the web, but almost no one seems to have spoken of the third one.</p>
  
  <p>I'd be thankful if someone provided some insight on this.</p>