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SimpleLOD user support thread

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by Orbcreation, Nov 25, 2014.

  1. hopeful

    hopeful

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    If I recall correctly, an improvement for blendshapes is coming in U5.1.
     
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  2. netvortex_dc

    netvortex_dc

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    @hopeful you got any reference for that ? I'd like to read more on that topic.
     
  3. hopeful

    hopeful

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    Mmm ... I can't seem to find a reference, sorry. I see on Feb 17 Mecanim.Dev mentions that the blendshapes API is being worked on, but wouldn't be ready for Unity 5.0. Either there was another reference, or I assumed it might be in 5.1.
     
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  4. twobob

    twobob

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    So I was thinking about the problems around compressing flat shaded meshes such as the type that have become popular through such tools as Mesh Materializer (MM), Polyworld et al.

    It wasn't so much "an epiphany" as just going over every possible permutation to get the very lowest tri/poly count - without holes.

    I think I have a semi-decent workflow - that is as deterministic as I can manage.

    I will use Mesh Materializer here + Simple LOD but you can use w/e

    Here is a simple terrain with typical numbers - it's 257 * 257 * 513 - a handy chunk

    preExport.JPG
    Here are some (moderately useful) numbers
    The draw calls: circa 300
    Tri: 147.3k
    Verts: 84.1k
    Let's just pretend they are "Solid truth" and move on

    So I export the Terrain via MM and choose to NOT flat shade the result. This decision is critical for the compression process to have a chance of working properly at very high compression.

    Lets look at the numbers.
    preLODpostExport.JPG
    Draw: 5
    Tri: 5.8k
    Vert: 2.9k

    Since this is a single mesh now we can assume they are the total numbers (nothing is elided via culling)

    We then whack up the compression on Simple LOD to 3.0 and use the Simplify Mesh option.
    we manually shove all the setting for preservation to 2.0 and give it 10 iterations.

    we note VISUALLY if there are any holes in the result and pull back the compression by 0.05 each time until there aren't, this can sometimes be annoying but generally works okay, just choose REVERT and repeat.

    Once we have a mesh we like we keep it.
    Let's look at some numbers
    PreFlatteningPostExport.JPG

    Draw: 5
    Tri: 919
    Vert: 482

    Nice. but it's not flat shaded yet... So we pass it BACK thru MM now and choose the flat-shading option.

    SmallNumberTerrain.JPG

    Let's look at those numbers..
    under1k.JPG

    On an unlit path:
    Draw: 2
    Tri: 919
    Vert: 2.7k

    Okay so we got our super cheap, hyper compressed, flat-shaded 256m2 of terrain mesh.

    How much does it cost to light/render that in each path and what are the caveats?
    Next post...
     
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2015
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  5. twobob

    twobob

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    deferred - Either Receive Shadow - Or - Cast Shadow, not both and a single directional light with shadows on.

    deferedLit-ReceiveShadowOnly.JPG
    deferred - Self Shadowing - so Receive AND cast shadow AND a single directional light with shadows on.

    deferedLit-selfShadow.JPG

    forward lit - no shadows

    forwardLit.JPG
    One thing I did notice was that if you leave CAST or RECEIVE shadows on the material - even if you don't have a single directional light with shadows on. so No shadow casting lights and even shadows TURNED OFF: The geometry for the shadows will still be made, so if you really don't need a shadow TURN OFF the CAST AND RECEIVE shadows setting per material.

    Anyways. there are some thumb in the air numbers for lighting paths and shadows.

    Hope it helps someone.
    I am very happy with deferred - Either Receive Shadow - Or - Cast Shadow as an option on the cheap stuff.
     
  6. Orbcreation

    Orbcreation

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  7. justifun

    justifun

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    Is there a way to export your model back out of unity after combining the mesh and merging the texture atlas?
     
  8. Orbcreation

    Orbcreation

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  9. twobob

    twobob

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    http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php?title=ObjExporter
    became
    http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php?title=ExportOBJ
    (This page was last modified on 24 May 2014)
    also http://answers.unity3d.com/storage/attachments/3507-objectexporter.zip from
    http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/317951/how-to-use-editorobjexporter-obj-saving-script-fro.html
    EDIT: The code here is also worth looking over
    http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/561786/how-to-export-obj-from-editor-with-rescaled-mesh.html

    YMMV (various parts worked fine for the things I used them on, when I used them, IIRC, with a bit of care and logic) however sometimes some information may not go thru, vertex color data or blendshapes or - well - whatever - that is a limitation that is circumnavigated by some other paid-for assets (but not the blendshapes)

    and for lateral completeness further to my terrain example above http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php?title=TerrainObjExporter that used to work too IIRC, haven't tested it on 5 myself.
     
    Last edited: Apr 1, 2015
  10. teacoat

    teacoat

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    Does this fully support unity 5? It looks really handy!
     
  11. twobob

    twobob

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    It seems fine with u5 so far
     
  12. Orbcreation

    Orbcreation

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    Yes, it fully supports Unity5, including uv3 and uv4 coordinates
     
  13. Greg-Bassett

    Greg-Bassett

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    Just used SimpleLOD for the first time on a Fuse character, and it works a treat! :) I got SimpleLOD when it was on sale a few weeks ago as I knew I would need it for an upcoming project with a number of Fuse characters, super impressed with how easy it is to use and the results, single mesh all animating and working perfectly!
     
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  14. WarpBubble

    WarpBubble

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    Hey, I'm having a little difficulty with Simple LOD creating holes in my models. I'm trying to simplify asteroid fractures that are already fairly low poly. Each piece I do seems to react differently to the different settings, sometimes I get there eventually through a lot of trial and error, but frequently holes are appearing. Is there anything that can be done to avoid this?
     
  15. ruslite

    ruslite

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    Hey, how to divide the object in chunks ?
     
  16. Orbcreation

    Orbcreation

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    @WarpBubble Making low poly objects even more low poly is tough. Asteroids typically have spikes and sharp edges and SimpleLOD detects those and tries to lay off. Only a handful vertices remain that can potetntially be decimated and chances are that those are at the edges of your UV map. A smooth object is much easier to decimate. I don't think you will get any real good results decimating low poly, non smooth, meshes like this. Sorry. Maybe a tool that creates collider meshes would be better for you?

    @ruslite SimpleLOD tries to combine the chunks into 1 object. You want to do the opposit. What you can do is take the submesh combine tool. Select only 1 submesh and extract that into a new mesh. Then take out that new gameObject and repeat the process.
     
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  17. JBR-games

    JBR-games

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    @Orbcreation is there anyway to Decrease the poly count further once the sliders are maxed out. (Changing some numbers in code?) I dont care if the mesh gets some holes or areas disappear its just for far away LODs. but on certain models that are 3k tris, they are only going down to 2k and id like 1k or less. Also many times if i do a 4 LOD stages the 3 and 4 lod are same tris.
    thanks
     
  18. Orbcreation

    Orbcreation

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    Sure. The slider max values are only set as some reasonable maximum, but you can go as high as you want.

    You can either change the max settings of the sliders in SimpleLOD_Editor.cs or you can pass the values manually to the function:
    GameObject.SetUpLODLevels(float[] lodScreenSizes, float[] maxWeights, bool recalcNormals, float removeSmallParts = 1f, float protectNormals = 1f, float protectUvs = 1f, float protectSubMeshesAndSharpEdges = 1f, float smallTrianglesFirst = 1f, int nrOfSteps = 1)

    When Lod3 and LOD4 are the same, it means that the remaining vertices have an impact on the mesh shape that is larger than tolerated by the compression settings.
     
  19. JBR-games

    JBR-games

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    Great ill try that, thanks
     
  20. CF-Games

    CF-Games

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    Hello,

    Great tool for creating LOD's and reducing triangles, but is there currently a way to create a texture atlas for multiple objects that aren't submeshes?

    For example, lets say I have 10 crates, each with their own texture. Now I want to create a mobile version where all 10 textures are combined into one texture to reduce the draw calls. So the end result should be 10 separate objects using the same material and texture.

    Is this currently possible with the texture atlas tool in Simple LOD? If so, how?

    It would be easy enough for me to combine the textures manually, but then I would have to open each model in Blender and scale and reposition the UV's for each object.
     
  21. dxmachina

    dxmachina

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    Unity 5 is crashing for me when I try to merge meshes on any Fuse character. Is there any issue or workaround I should know about?
     
  22. Orbcreation

    Orbcreation

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    @CF Games Sorry man. SimpleLOD is primarily an LOD baker. The atlas stuff was only added because people were asking for it.
    @dxmachina I had another customer who send me a model that also causes Unity5 to crash. I will have a look and report back. Just a little bit drowning in work atm.
     
  23. Tiny-Tree

    Tiny-Tree

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    is there a way to use SimpleLod to decimate terrains? some way t4m did it but working on unity 5
     
  24. hopeful

    hopeful

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    Give the Mesh Baker 2 asset a look over. It's fairly full-featured. Maybe it can do what you want.
     
  25. Orbcreation

    Orbcreation

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    @dxmachina I found what causes Unity5 to crash on some models. When you try to combine meshes on a model that contains blendshapes, Unity crashes.

    Blendshapes are inaccessible in the API, so in order to preserve them when merging meshes, I use a trick. I make a full copy of the original mesh including the blendshapes, and then clear everything inside the mesh except the blendshapes. This way we get a clean and empty mesh (like Mesh.Instantiate()), that still contains the orginal blendshapes. Next I fill it with the merged vertices and voila: A combined mesh with still functioning blendshapes.

    This trick works fine in Unity 4.5 and 4.6, but it turns out Unity 5 doesn't like to be cheated. And empty mesh with only blendshapes makes it crash. I found that it crashes as soon as I set mesh.vertices = null; So the only way to fix this is to remove the code that preserves the blendshapes. This means that you will loose them in the combined mesh. All we can do is pray that Unity will someday make an API for blendshapes.

    I have submitted an update to the asset store people. If you are in a hurry, do this:
    Open GameObjectExtenstions.cs and go to line 424;
    Replace the section you find there with this code:
    Code (CSharp):
    1.                 #if UNITY_5
    2.                     // Unity 5 crashes when you set mesh.vertices = null; while there are blendshapes
    3.                 #else
    4.                     foreach(SkinnedMeshRenderer skinnedMeshRenderer in skinnedMeshRenderers) {
    5.                         if(skinnedMeshRenderer.sharedMesh != null) {
    6.                             if(vertices.Count + skinnedMeshRenderer.sharedMesh.vertexCount > 65534) meshLimitReached = true;
    7.                             if(mesh == null && skinnedMeshRenderer.sharedMesh.blendShapeCount > 0) {
    8.                                 if(meshOffset <= counter && (!meshLimitReached)) {
    9.                                     // make copy to preserve blendshapes
    10.                                     mesh = (Mesh)Mesh.Instantiate(skinnedMeshRenderer.sharedMesh);
    11.                                     #if UNITY_4_3
    12.                                     #elif UNITY_4_4
    13.                                     #elif UNITY_4_5
    14.                                     #elif UNITY_4_6
    15.                                     #else
    16.                                         mesh.uv4 = null;
    17.                                         mesh.uv3 = null;
    18.                                     #endif
    19.                                     mesh.uv = null;
    20.                                     mesh.uv2 = null;
    21.                                     mesh.boneWeights = null;
    22.                                     mesh.colors32 = null;
    23.                                     mesh.triangles = null;
    24.                                     mesh.tangents = null;
    25.                                     mesh.normals = null;
    26.                                     mesh.vertices = null;
    27.  
    28.                                     bool allSubmeshesMerged = MergeMeshInto(skinnedMeshRenderer.sharedMesh, skinnedMeshRenderer.bones, skinnedMeshRenderer.sharedMaterials, vertices, normals, uv1s, uv2s, uv3s, uv4s, colors32, boneWeights, bones, bindPoses, subMeshes, ((skinnedMeshRenderer.transform.localScale.x * skinnedMeshRenderer.transform.localScale.y * skinnedMeshRenderer.transform.localScale.z) < 0f), new Vector4(1,1,0,0), skinnedMeshRenderer.transform, topGO.transform, skinnedMeshRenderer.gameObject.name + "_" + skinnedMeshRenderer.sharedMesh.name, skipSubmeshNames);
    29.                                     if(allSubmeshesMerged && skinnedMeshRenderer.gameObject != topGO) {
    30.                                         skinnedMeshRenderer.gameObject.SetActive(false);
    31.                                     }
    32.                                     nrOfMeshWithBlendShapes = meshNr;
    33.                                 }
    34.                             }
    35.                             meshNr++;
    36.                         }
    37.                     }
    38.                 #endif
    39.  
     
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  26. Orbcreation

    Orbcreation

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  27. radimoto

    radimoto

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    I am testing Simple LOD with 4x 64K mesh terrains that are tiled 2x2. The edge verts align perfectly with no visible seams.

    I have run Simple LOD using "Simplify Mesh" using Protect sharp edges = 2.

    Looking at LOD4 the 64K meshes are reduced to 17K - 28K verts. It has actually done a really good job of keeping the edges aligned, but there a few places where I can see the verts differ and there are small gaps where the edges align.

    Are there any other settings that can be used to force the edges to align? Alternatively can I request for matching vert detection across multiple meshes, to enable seamless reduction across multiple meshes? Thanks

    EDIT - also just to add, is there any way to selectively exclude verts from being simplified? For example if I have a road in my mesh that I want to preserve so that it is as smooth as possible in-game, while simplifying the remaining terrain mesh topology?
     
    Last edited: May 9, 2015
  28. dxmachina

    dxmachina

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    That's really too bad re:blendshape support. There is another asset that I use that is similarly crippled for this reason. Really hope there is a solution that supports blendshapes soon.

    Thanks for looking into it.
     
  29. Orbcreation

    Orbcreation

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    @radimoto You could try to play around with the values for protecting UV's. Assuming that your UV coordinates are identical for the vertices that used to be where the small gaps are now.
    Increasing the nr of steps might also improve the results.

    There is no way to selectively decimate vertices. If your road uses a different material, you could use selective mesh compression to create a new mesh with only the road. Then compress the terrain mesh and merge is back with the road.

    @dxmachina I have one more trick that might work. Will try to test it in the coming week and let you know.
     
  30. FamerJoe

    FamerJoe

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    This asset is epic. I've been looking for an LOD solution that combines skinned meshes with nested objects etc - and it's been a real headache. To find this solution not only do that gracefully, but also handle multiple LOD levels with a few lines of code at RUNTIME is incredible. It literally took me about 2 minutes to implement (using the UMA example from earlier in the post - but I'm not using UMA fyi) and it worked first shot. I almost couldn't believe it worked so well out of the box with no issues. A+++
     
    twobob likes this.
  31. Teila

    Teila

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    I used this on my river..took a chance and just went for it. Amazing results. :) You saved me a lot of fps.
     
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  32. Greg-Bassett

    Greg-Bassett

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    Hi, I have been doing some more work with Simple LOD and Fuse characters, thank you so much for the latest update 1.5b which was released yesterday, this has fixed my Unity5 crashes when merging Fuse character meshes with Blendshapes.

    However, I seem to be losing the Blendshapes from the Body mesh, I have the Body as the first Gameobject in the Hierarchy of the character (as per the Blendshapes Caveats http://orbcreation.com/orbcreation/docu.orb?1146), and I am creating the LOD's for use with the LODSwitcher, but the LOD0 mesh does not contain the original Blendshapes?

    Any ideas what I am doing wrong?
     
    Last edited: May 13, 2015
  33. Mad_Mark

    Mad_Mark

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    Totally n00b question, my first foray into anything LOD. I create the 4 LOD objects with default settings using option a, and then run the game. It seems all 4 LODs are visible when I am close up. I get odd polygon shapes showing through, and the textures are all flat and patchy. Moving away, I can see the individual LODs disappearing, and from far away, looks good. Do I need to do a LOD manager script of sorts?

    Mark
     
  34. Orbcreation

    Orbcreation

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    @Greg Bassett The whole reason that Unity 5 crashed was because of those blendshapes. I didn't fix it, because it was unfixable. I merely commented the code out that preserved the blendshapes (see post 175 in this thread) However, I have 1 more thing I want to try, but just haven't had the time yet.

    @Mad_Mark Yes, you need to use either LODSwitcher which is included in SimpleLOD, LODGroup which is a default Unity component or a 3rd party product. The LODSwitcher/LODGroup will disable any LOD levels that should not be visible.
     
  35. Orbcreation

    Orbcreation

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    Ok, I just tested an alternative way to preserve the blendshapes without crashing Unity5. And uhm, it doesn't crash unity and it works, but unfortunately the blendshapes get completely wrecked. I'm very sorry guys. Until Unity releases an API to access the blendshapes or fixes the crash, there is no way to preserve the blendshapes when merging meshes.

    The only way to merge meshes and preserve blendshapes is now:
    Open Unity 4.6 - import the model - merge submeshes - port the model to Unity 5

    I have updated the documentation page.
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: May 19, 2015
    twobob likes this.
  36. twobob

    twobob

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    Long Story Short: Blendshapes are utterly unsupported.
     
  37. FamerJoe

    FamerJoe

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    Greetings! Turns out SimpleLOD is too slow to use when players load into my game, so I figured I'd just switch to SetUpLODLevelsWithLODSwitcherInBackground and be done with it. But when I do, no LOD levels are created. I'm not changing anything but adding "InBackground". Is there something else that needs to be done? It's still fining the meshes fine, it just seems to do nothing with them nor does it add the LODSwitcher script. Any ideas?
     
  38. twobob

    twobob

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    I think you talking about using it runtime on some player chosen hi-res mesh?
    And you have stepped back the "steps" to minimum...

    Perhaps request a non-blocking work queue from the dev and wait a few seconds with a nice "Working" image...
     
  39. FamerJoe

    FamerJoe

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    I am talking about using it at runtime. It worked fine, it was just too slow and created hitches for players in the game when it makes the LOD levels for the new player entering the game. Hence, the InBackground version of the extension. But it doesn't appear to do anything at all. A "Working" imagine isn't an option, since it's a multi-player game and the game is already in progress.

    edit: Whoops, my bad. I didn't realize I had to wrap it in a StartCoroutine - thought it was done behind the scenes. Thanks!
     
    Last edited: May 19, 2015
  40. FamerJoe

    FamerJoe

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    @twobob is there any way to use real threads with this? I tried SetUpLODLevelsWithLODSwitcherInBackground and although it doesn't straight up screen freeze anymore, it still chunks the game intermittently for a couple of seconds.
     
  41. twobob

    twobob

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    that is probably garbage. Break out the profiler. Grab some numbers

    I suspect amending the interim calculations to expect to complete in more than one frame is the problem.. with some garbage on top.

    Chuck out some frame values, see if it's those likely suspects
     
  42. Greg-Bassett

    Greg-Bassett

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    That's ok by me! Thanks for the info, gets me working! :)
     
  43. Orbcreation

    Orbcreation

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    @farmerjoe There is a documentation page on this here http://orbcreation.com/orbcreation/docu.orb?1234
    You start a coroutine and capture the result from it. The SetUpLODLevelsWithLODSwitcherInBackground function that is called by the coroutine starts a real thread. If your game still pauses there is indeed probably a different problem. Most likely with the garbage collector indeed, but best to check the profiler window.
     
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  44. Walton

    Walton

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    Hi having a little problem with Simple LOD 1.5.. Using Unity 5 Following the demo on you tube.. select the model in the scene and merge meshes..that is ok.. then click on a. Create LOD levels and LODSwitcher.. get no message and Unity goes into Not Responding leave for 20 minutes still not responding... the mesh is not very big it is only a model of a bed..

    Can someone help please..
     
  45. hopeful

    hopeful

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    @Walton - You shouldn't get that sort of error, of course, but my guess is that your model is already low poly and optimized? I would think the average bed mesh is probably pretty simple.
     
  46. Walton

    Walton

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    @hopeful - does that mean i dont need LOD's then?
     
  47. hopeful

    hopeful

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    For that model you probably don't need LOD. The exception could be if you had a high polygon model of a bed, or a scene with a view of tens of thousands of beds extending to the horizon, which is unlikely.

    You don't have to use LOD methods on every mesh. LOD is mainly helpful when you have a mesh with a whole lot of detail ... like thousands or tens of thousands of polygons. That's when rendering the full mesh all the time, even if the object is very distant, can get to be a burden on the GPU. Character meshes can have a lot of detail, for example, but objects with simple geometry like squares and rectangles (such as doors, boxes, and book cases) are often already modeled to be low poly and can be left as is.

    When you have a model with a whole lot of polygons, you can reduce the number of polys in the mesh using a tool like SimpleLOD, and make several different versions (LOD levels) of the model using meshes with smaller and smaller polygon counts. The idea being that if the model is far away, and players can't see all the details anyway, then why make the GPU render them? You only show the level of detail that is appropriate for the distance.

    So conceptually you might have a model with 10,000 polys as the original, and this one can be viewed at close range, and then one with maybe half that which is viewed at a slightly farther range, and then one that is about half of that (1/4 total) even further away. You create however many levels of detail you think you'll need for that model. Of course, as the meshes have their polygon counts reduced, they get less detailed looking, and possibly even odd looking (sharp angles everywhere) if you try to reduce the number of polygons by too much.

    In the case of a bed - a potentially simple box-like shape - you may not be able to reduce it further, and it could be that when you ask to reduce it anyway, SimpleLOD is testing all over the mesh looking for a place to cut a polygon out and not finding one, and thus caught in a loop, churning away into infinity. (I don't know if it will really do that, but the SimpleLOD dev ought to be able to tell you for sure.)

    If I had a bed in my scene, most likely I wouldn't worry about LOD for it at all, as it is going to be a relatively simple mesh and only viewed from close distance anyway (when the camera view is in the bedroom). For efficiency, I'd probably focus on making sure that it - and the other items in the room - are culled by occlusion when not in view. Occlusion and LOD methods can work together to put as little burden on the GPU as possible at any moment in the scene. While occlusion also works outside, it is especially helpful with indoors views, as walls and other objects will typically block the view of most other meshes in the scene, and with occlusion operating if you can't see them you don't send them to the GPU to be rendered.

    Things I might want LOD levels on are complex things that can be seen from a distance (thus things typically seen outside), which could include people, trees, cars, buildings, and so on. Things seen indoors, like toilets and file cabinets and house plants, will never be seen from distance, and thus won't benefit from LOD (very high poly models being an exception, of course, and tremendously large rooms, like maybe an indoor shopping mall).
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2015
    wetcircuit likes this.
  48. Walton

    Walton

    Joined:
    May 2, 2015
    Posts:
    78
    @ hopeful

    Thank you for your insight into LOD.. now i understand more.. so i will try Simple LOD on a different mesh in my scene like a vehicle
     
  49. Orbcreation

    Orbcreation

    Joined:
    May 4, 2010
    Posts:
    231
    @Walton
    Still, you should get a result even if your mesh is as low poly as a single triangle. Could you maybe email me your model, so I can investigate what goes wrong?
     
  50. Walton

    Walton

    Joined:
    May 2, 2015
    Posts:
    78
    @Orbcreation

    Great package.. yes of course i can email you my mesh so you can see whats going on.. what is your e-mail address please..