How to get the correct LOD's

angelodeasa

I have noticed that the LOD's duly affect the fps but is there anyway to get a good balance of the LOD's without manually checking in rfactor for fps loss? I just wanted to know if there is a faster way or basically it would be a project in some sorts to make the LOD's work perfectly with regards to fps...

Any help would really be appreciated... :D
 
Do you mean lod the object out, or make replacement lods for the object?

[ED] Also, what software are you using?
 
Last edited:
With LODs it's about to gain as much fps without seeing the difference (or to make it not that noticable). Maybe there are general suggestions about how less % of polys LODB should have compared to LODA, then C vs B and so on, but with some objects you can reduce polycount by a lot and from 50 meters you won't see the difference, and for others (like car body shape) just reduce polycount by a notch and it will be wisible... YMMV though :p
 
OK, the lod out distance should be set to what you can see, ie, if you have a 500m area where the item is visible, you don't want to lod it out any earlier than 500m, but if there is a 20m section (like a sharp hairpin) then you can lod the object out earlier because it goes out of view anyway.
You can check what is in view in Simed by using the eye view function under the view menu. (make sure to remove non rendered things like xsectors and shadow and collision objects
You can measure the distance in simed, right click > Memorize XYZ, then on the bottom info bar, on the far right after the xyz is a distance indicator.
XYZ: ### D: ### <- thats the distance from where you last memorised zyx.

By doing it this way, you minimise having to constantly check it in game. On that note, you should be using the scene viewer to do quick checks on things, it loads a lot faster than the game and it has a lot of info like fps, how many things loded out etc etc.

If you have a 1000m open area and a high poly model you want to lod out, you might want to build a copy of the model and lower the poly count, then use it as a lod replacement. If your unfamiliar with 3d editing, let me know and I will type you up a quick tut on how to reduce polys quickly using Blender.

Weather or not the game engine will shut down faces that aren't in view I do not know, but I'd like to know.
 
oh man, thanks for this info's... this is really helpful

i have blender and 3ds max... but i constantly use 3ds max then i use the prooptimizer function i guess to lower poly... I am unfamiliar with the process of using a low poly model as a replacement for lod out... do you mean the high poly model will get a low lod out then the low poly model will have a high lod out so that there is still an object present? is that what you mean?

also i have a question with regards to the value of the lods... are the lod values in meters? or maybe based on something else?
 
It works much the same way as just a single object, but for lod b you have it turned off to begin with.

You have lod a which is the best one, then lod b which is lower detail, you might also have lod c, d, etc. you put both objects in the same place on the track, with lod a, you set the lod in to 0 and the lod out to (lets just use a random number for this example) set lod out to 100, then for lod b you set the lod in to 100 and the lod out to what ever you decide to lod it out at.

Then when you see it in game up close it is high detail, you see lod a, lod b is turned off for now, but when you get 100m away, you will see it change. Lod a will turn off and lod b will turn on.
 
nice... ima get started on working on my a b c objects :)... so im guessin the lod values are meters right?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top