LOD questions

[alleycat 28]

Some LOD questions:

1. What does LOD 1.000 mean, is it the number a specific distance?

2. Higher numbers means LOD for more distant objects?

3. What is the recommended polycount for different LODS?

4. How many LODs should an object have?

[da12thMonkey 1943]

1. No, the numbers just describe the transition order really. Back in OFP it defined the distance, but not any more.

2. In general yes, but the LOD that the game chooses to transition to at a given instant often depends on the number of objects in the scene, current framerate and stuff like that. You'll notice how much LOD popping you can get sometimes with trees and buildings - sometimes they don't have to be far away to go to really low detail.

3. For Resolution LODs each one should be roughly half the polycount of the previous LOD starting from the 0.000 or 1.000 (whichever is your top LOD) - this was what various members of the art team at BIS have advised to me and others. Geometry LODs (and PhysX LODs if you need one) should be pretty basic, low poly structures (a bounding box will do for weapons). Shadow LODs you just want the general silhouette of the object so you can cut out a lot of detail (particularly concave details). Pilot LODs can be a lot more detailed than your 0.000/1.000 if they need to be and this should really be the first model you make - then decide how different you can bear the model looking in 3rd person compared to 1st person, and start making your top Resolution LOD.

4. This is kind of determined by how many times you need to half the polycount to get to a nice low number of your choice (see point 2). Looking at similar objects to what you are making in the Arma 2 sample models should give you a fairly good idea of how low you need to go to reach your last LOD, and you just keep halving and halving until you get near that number.

[alleycat 28]

Thanks