• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

LOD Question.

F

FSD184

Messages
34
Country
australia
I have been making some models of varying complexity and adding LODs of 100 40 and 10 with SBuilderX but it's confusing me to what each LOD actually means.

I thought 40 was related to 40 pixels, but in FSX LOD 40 is showing up a lot closer than what I estimate to be 40 of my screens pixels.

In the SBuilderX settings for LOD creation there are options such as LODresolution and multiplier etc. is there a tutorial on what each of these options do in detail?

I am finding that even LOD 10 is much too close visually to reduce the polygon count of my models without destroying their appearance. I am almost tempted to leave LOD's out completely but the scenery is a commercial project and one that I want to be as efficient as possible.

Any help with how other modellers get the best LOD results?
 
Hi,

Are you sure you mean SBuilderX? I am not aware it can make LODs (or did you mean ModelConverterX)?

How big is the object you are adding the LOD to? The number is indeed related the amount of pixels it takes on screen, but it is not a direct translation. It usually takes a little trial and error to get the optimal value for an object.
 
Yes sorry, I do indeed mean your wonderful program ModelConverterX! :p

The objects vary, but on average they are a couple of hundred polygons in size. I just noticed that if I try to reduce the polygon count too much at LOD 40 it is quite noticeable, almost to the point where LOD 10 is the only practical size I can reduce a fair amount of polygons without destroying its appearance.

I was trying to reduce the polygon counts by half each LOD for eg.

LOD 100 = 500

LOD 40 = 250

LOD 10 = 125

But LOD 40 is so close that reducing the model complexity by any amount is very noticeable. I will keep experimenting to try and find a balance.
 
Hi,

With size I more meant the physical size of the object. So is it a few metres in size or a few hundred meters? Especially when the object is quite tall for example and not so wide, you might have to use lower LOD numbers then you might expect.
 
Hey Arno,

The objects are not especially tall, for example a rock that is 15L x 12W x 10H (meters).
I am experimenting with them, it is a lot of work to compile and open FSX to test the results for 400+ individual models :D
 
Hi,

That is a quite normal sized object indeed. You would expect that the normally recommended LOD values of 10, 40 and 100 would work OK for them.
 
In FSX, the LOD switching point I assume to mean half the diagonal of the model projected to the screen measured in pixel.

So, if you have a model with LOD_100 and LOD_040, it will switch when it is not bigger then 80 pixel on screen however you turn it.

With your model of 10m size, this means that a pixel is a bit more than 10x10 cm, so if you make a welding with 10 cm for the LOD_040 model, you are safe, a 20 cm welding will be at the edge of visibility.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top