Detail level question
by Duion · in Torque 3D Beginner · 01/16/2013 (12:14 am) · 4 replies
For very large scenes you need to make billboards out of the shapes in the last detail level to save resources, but what is if you want to make an even bigger scene and make even the billboards dissappear, or what do you do with shapes like buildings where billboards do not work nice, you can make a last LOD-level, but they still add up if you have thousands of them., so is there a way to tell the engine, that at maybe 16 pixel the shape is not rendered anymore, or is it done automatically somehow if something is not visible anymore?
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#2
To minimize performance overhead of having a large number of shapes, any hierarchy can be given a "Null LOD" detail marker. The detail number of the next LOD marker will denote when the meshes should disappear.
So for your example add a LOD level that looks something like this:
nulldetail16
Ron
01/16/2013 (7:50 am)
A simpler method is to use the null LOD. Here is an excerpt from the documentation:To minimize performance overhead of having a large number of shapes, any hierarchy can be given a "Null LOD" detail marker. The detail number of the next LOD marker will denote when the meshes should disappear.
So for your example add a LOD level that looks something like this:
nulldetail16
Ron
#3
From what I remember imposters are hard coded to be the last LOD though and don't tend to play nice if you force an extra "empty" LOD after them.
01/16/2013 (7:55 am)
For buildings and other non-imposterable (gah that's not a word, but you know what I mean) you can try "LODing Out" by leaving the last LOD empty (no mesh object). If that doesn't work (I read somewhere very long ago that some 3D app exporter didn't like it) you can just create a tiny downward facing single tris for the last LOD mesh object.From what I remember imposters are hard coded to be the last LOD though and don't tend to play nice if you force an extra "empty" LOD after them.
#4
As i tried it, it did not work, i made a nulldetail16 node and an empty object with the number 16, the empty object and the node got ignored.
But as i deleted the empty model the empty node was added in the shape editor, but with messing up the order of the levels.
I think the numbers are a little bit confusing, cause they are not correct, the nulldetail16 has not to be 16 it has to be 0 and the detail before that has to be changed to 16.
A better order would look like: fulldetaillevel_100, this means the model is shown, untill its smaller than 100pixels, after this it changes to maybe a loddetaillevel_16, this means the loddetaillevel_16 is shown from 100 to 16 pixel and after that there will come the nulldetail_0-node without a model to it, this means the nulldetail is shown from 16 to 0 pixel or infinite.
Maybe there should be a standart for naming the LOD-stages, the numbers get adjustet anyway in the torque shape editor, because ingame you can see better when they have to fade. Something like 3,2,1,0 would be simpler. In pixel numbers i found out, that something like 250,100,10,0 are good numbers, but over the 100 stage only for highpoly objects with closeup details.
01/19/2013 (3:18 am)
Good idea, i wonder that i did not come up with that myself.As i tried it, it did not work, i made a nulldetail16 node and an empty object with the number 16, the empty object and the node got ignored.
But as i deleted the empty model the empty node was added in the shape editor, but with messing up the order of the levels.
I think the numbers are a little bit confusing, cause they are not correct, the nulldetail16 has not to be 16 it has to be 0 and the detail before that has to be changed to 16.
A better order would look like: fulldetaillevel_100, this means the model is shown, untill its smaller than 100pixels, after this it changes to maybe a loddetaillevel_16, this means the loddetaillevel_16 is shown from 100 to 16 pixel and after that there will come the nulldetail_0-node without a model to it, this means the nulldetail is shown from 16 to 0 pixel or infinite.
Maybe there should be a standart for naming the LOD-stages, the numbers get adjustet anyway in the torque shape editor, because ingame you can see better when they have to fade. Something like 3,2,1,0 would be simpler. In pixel numbers i found out, that something like 250,100,10,0 are good numbers, but over the 100 stage only for highpoly objects with closeup details.
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