Sidney Schwartz
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Hi Arno,
I'm using MCX with Sketchup. I finally got around to giving the LOD creater a try. I think the idea of autmoatically creating LOD models is a great idea, but it may not work as well as letting us create and add our own LOD models, as we can do in Gmax. Here's the results of my test on a relatively simple (to me, anyway) hanger.
Pic 1 shows the fully detailed model in textured and wireframe modes. Pic 2 shows the results of using the LOD creater and the settings I used. The only setting I changed was to set the triangle penalty value to max, hoping MCX would then remove only smaller details from the model. As you can see, some distortion of the model resulted, and the new triangle count went from 2858 to 1142.
Pic three shows an LOD model I made myself in Sketchup by making a copy of the original and removing some details. I removed the electric meter box and conduits, flattened the door frames flush with the surface, and removed the yellow concrete guard posts. This took me about the same amount of time as it took MCX to make its modifications. The difference in the number of final triangles is huge...1142 for MCX vs. 160 for me.
It's certainly possible that I'm not understanding how to use this function correctly. Or it may be possible that creating good LODs requires making decisions that a program is incapable of making. I wouldn't expect MCX to know that a particular part of a model is something that can be removed entirely because it wouldn't be visible from a distance anway.
My preference would be to be able to create my own series of models in Sketchup, and then have a way to assign them LOD numbers in MCX. So there'd be a master model, say "hanger_A_100", and I would tell MCX to use hanger_A_50 and hanger_A_10 for LODs.
Thanks for welcoming our feedback. Hope this makes sense.
I'm using MCX with Sketchup. I finally got around to giving the LOD creater a try. I think the idea of autmoatically creating LOD models is a great idea, but it may not work as well as letting us create and add our own LOD models, as we can do in Gmax. Here's the results of my test on a relatively simple (to me, anyway) hanger.
Pic 1 shows the fully detailed model in textured and wireframe modes. Pic 2 shows the results of using the LOD creater and the settings I used. The only setting I changed was to set the triangle penalty value to max, hoping MCX would then remove only smaller details from the model. As you can see, some distortion of the model resulted, and the new triangle count went from 2858 to 1142.
Pic three shows an LOD model I made myself in Sketchup by making a copy of the original and removing some details. I removed the electric meter box and conduits, flattened the door frames flush with the surface, and removed the yellow concrete guard posts. This took me about the same amount of time as it took MCX to make its modifications. The difference in the number of final triangles is huge...1142 for MCX vs. 160 for me.
It's certainly possible that I'm not understanding how to use this function correctly. Or it may be possible that creating good LODs requires making decisions that a program is incapable of making. I wouldn't expect MCX to know that a particular part of a model is something that can be removed entirely because it wouldn't be visible from a distance anway.
My preference would be to be able to create my own series of models in Sketchup, and then have a way to assign them LOD numbers in MCX. So there'd be a master model, say "hanger_A_100", and I would tell MCX to use hanger_A_50 and hanger_A_10 for LODs.
Thanks for welcoming our feedback. Hope this makes sense.
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