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MCX LOD Tool!

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unitedstates
Hello @arno and fellow builders!

I'm here to inquire about the use of the LOD creation tool within MCX. I'm currently "manually" creating LOD's for my objects in Blender using the decimate modifier, and wondering if and how this incredible tool could perhaps aid in the process? A brief workflow overview would be much appreciated! FYI I'm using models for MSFS.

Thanks in advance!
 
Hi,

The LOD Creator tool is meant to automatically make a LOD for you. It has two different algortihms to simplify the model and will then store that simplified version as a LOD.

If you create the LODs manually in Blender I don't think this tool will help a lot. Then it is probably easier to just save them as glTF from Blender. Or you could use the merge tool to combine the different LOD versions you made in Blender into one model in MCX.
 
Hi,

The LOD Creator tool is meant to automatically make a LOD for you. It has two different algortihms to simplify the model and will then store that simplified version as a LOD.

If you create the LODs manually in Blender I don't think this tool will help a lot. Then it is probably easier to just save them as glTF from Blender. Or you could use the merge tool to combine the different LOD versions you made in Blender into one model in MCX.

Thanks for the quick reply Arno!

I would much rather have an automated algorithm create the LODs for me as its very time consuming to do it by hand and I am probably not that good at it anyways.

Ideally, I'd like to make my x00 model in blender and then process model through MCX for the LODs. Would this be an effective/efficient way of doing this?

If so, would you mind sharing a high level workflow overview to get my mind around it?

Thanks!
 
Also Arno, would you mind sharing what other features MCX offers in the way of optimization for our objects/scenery? More specifically, what processes would you recommend be done for most all scenery elements to make the most out of the tool and further optimize our projects?
 
Ideally, I'd like to make my x00 model in blender and then process model through MCX for the LODs. Would this be an effective/efficient way of doing this?

If so, would you mind sharing a high level workflow overview to get my mind around it?
I would say just load your model in MCX and then play around with the settings in the LOD creator. The manual also shows you how to use the tool. You can either use a vertex clustering algorithm or a quadratic error based algorithm for simplifications. Which works best really differs per model and how the model was made. So there is no single answer for the best approach.
Also Arno, would you mind sharing what other features MCX offers in the way of optimization for our objects/scenery? More specifically, what processes would you recommend be done for most all scenery elements to make the most out of the tool and further optimize our projects?
That's a very generic question and hard to answer. MCX is more focussed on FSX/P3D, although it does support the MSFS formats as well. So I think most value in the workflow is there when converting between different sim versions. Or when you want to use a modelling tool that can not export directly to MSFS formats.
 
I would say just load your model in MCX and then play around with the settings in the LOD creator. The manual also shows you how to use the tool. You can either use a vertex clustering algorithm or a quadratic error based algorithm for simplifications. Which works best really differs per model and how the model was made. So there is no single answer for the best approach.

That's a very generic question and hard to answer. MCX is more focussed on FSX/P3D, although it does support the MSFS formats as well. So I think most value in the workflow is there when converting between different sim versions. Or when you want to use a modelling tool that can not export directly to MSFS formats.

Thanks for your kind response Arno, especially how in retrospect I see how generic the question was. As always, thank you for what you do!
 
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