LoD Manager P
Levels of detail (LoD) are used for increasing the frame rate or number of models in a level. The rendering of a detailed model with thousands of polygons looks quite good when the model is close to the camera - however when the same model is far from the eye point, details are less noticeably. A simpler model with few polygons will look just as good in that situation, but render faster. The difference in rendering speed is quite remarkable in huge outside levels where lots of entities are visible. The LoD Manager automatically generates a set of 3 additional meshes - LoD stages - with decreasing polygon numbers. The polygon reduction and other parameters can be individually adjusted for every separate group of the model.
On the right side of the LoD manager you'll see a table of the LoD stages. In the first column gruop numbers and the number of polygons per group are listed. The next 3 columns indicate the number of faces and the reduction percentage for every mesh group. 100% means that no LOD reduction takes place. Clicking on the table headers displays the model in the corresponding LoD stage in the view windows. A group in the table can be selected by clicking on it. When selecting a group in the first column, the main mesh is reduced. Reducing the main mesh is irreversible, while reducing LoD meshes can be reversed anytime.
Quickstart: Open the LoD Manager, click Recalculate, then click Create All. All the rest is for fine-tuning.
| Delete Faces | Deletes all polygons from the selected group. At that LoD stage the group will not be rendered. |
| Delete LoD | Deletes the LoD reduction percentage of the selected group, and uses the reduction percentage from the next-lower LoD stage. |
| Delete All | Deletes all LoD stages from the model, and sets all percentages at 100%. |
| Mesh Reducer | Opens the Mesh Reducer Panel for individually calculating the mesh reduction percentage for the selected group. |
| Recalculate | Opens the Mesh Reducer Panel for automatically calculating the mesh reduction of the whole model. Depending on the complexity of the model, this process can take from seconds up to minutes. At the first run, default percentages are used. Manually adjusting the percentages might be required if the mesh has too many or too few faces in a certain group. |
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| Separate skinning connection | Unconnected mesh areas are treated like separate groups, and reduced selarately. |
| Separate materials | .Mesh areas with separate skins are treated like separate groups, and reduced selarately. |
| Do not change border edges | Do not apply reduction to the border edges of a mesh group. Can prevent holes in non-closed parts of the mesh. |
| [<<] [>>] | Toggle through the separate parts of a mesh group (in Triangle Mode only). |
| Use edge length | The shortest edges are most likely to be merged. Adjust the slider to give this condition higher or lower priority. |
| Use face volume | The smallest triangles are most likely to be merged. Adjust the slider to give this condition higher or lower priority. |
| Use face normal | Triangles with similar normals are most likely to be merged to a single triangle. Adjust the slider to give this condition higher or lower priority. |
| Create All | Automatically reduce all groups (for the Recalculate operation). |
| Target face slider | Set the reduction factor by giving the final number of polygons. |
| Load faces from MED | Loads the polygons-to-reduce from the selected mesh group. |
| Modify faces | Applies the reduced mesh to the selected mesh group. This way even the main mesh can be reduced. |
| Add LoD | Adds the reduced mesh to the next LoD step. |
| Restore faces | Restores the original mesh of the selected mesh group. |
| Cancel | Terminates the mesh reducer. |