single surface question

i read somewhere here some time ago that single surfaces are more efficient for the 3d system.

so then if i create a level in my 3d program, and its comprised of various objects, is there a way to jam them all into a single surface?

imagepacker doesn't seem like what i want - i need a routine i think. upon load of my level, i go down the tree, extracting my actionable objects, and what remains is the level - that should be put all onto one surface, right? so that's what i need to understand / need a routine for.

You don't want your whole level to be one object, nevermind one surface.

Just keep the number of surfaces low. If you have lots of trees for example that all use the same texture, use maybe two surfaces to represent all the trees in a 100 foot square area. One for the leaves, one for the trunks.

You would want your level to use mor than one entity so you can hide those which are not visible from the current location. How you decide if they are visible or not is up to you.