can someone please tell me how to properly use LOD, as i am still still wrapping my head around modelling and i now have 3 meshes for the same rock formation but all on different LOD's, i just need to know is it all handled through the FPE or is it meant to still be 1 .x file?

if handled all through the FPE could some give me an example FPE just for a static item with 3 LOD's.

thanks in advance

properly would be to avoid adding the lod distance in the .fpe file.



The stock lod distance is fine and at the end it depends on your model but if its lets say a big model like a flat well then

its fine to define a specific distance in the .fpe file but for small models its not really effective at least am seein this way.



Yes it is still ment to be just one .x file and its not hard to create the lod stages, you dont even need to connect the lods.

All you have to do is to name the meshes this way.



LOD_0 "That is your mesh without reduction"

LOD_1 "The 1st Lod Stage, usually reduced to 50%, for complex models use 70% reduction"

LOD_2 "The 2nd Lod Stage, reduced to 25% , for complex models use 50% reduction"

just another quick q, which version of blender should i be using for the best export to .x?

2.69 is for now the best solution
or 2.49 if you know your way around.

I've never actually played with LOD, but, I guess its time to start experimenting.

As for the best version of Blender, I would always recommend using 2.69 as it has the most stable DirectX exporter.

For all the pros out there, Rolfy, WOI, Henry, I'm talking to you.....

When you are creating LOD model, am I correct in assuming that you simply copy the entire mesh 3 times (or how ever many LOD's you require) and decimate each one by the given percentage and rename accordingly. Then, with all three meshes populating the same space, export the whole thing as one model?

Cheers

Jay.

This is what i explained, if you would look up you would understand that and from all those pros u named, noone is working with blender but am and my store models all have lod stages. However i would advice against reusing the uv space from the LOD_0 Mesh, simply because a decimated mesh will look crappy if you use the same texture/uv space. The less polys, the more it will look stretched and therefore its best to have evry mesh its own uv space in the texture.

Anyways short answer is yes, your question is your answer.

@J0linar,



My apologies, I must admit, I didn't fully read all of the posts. I sometimes, just skim read and don't fully pay attention.

[quote=]from all those pr

Nah np, i didnt ment to sound rude, guess i sometimes just get carried away when writing.

It will be fun once we get to more advanced models when it comes to exporting from blender to fpscr (characters/weapons).

Btw, keep up your tutorials, am sure many newcomers appreciate them.

Hey all I have a question about LODs. So when you finally have figured out how to create them within your X file and labled the meshes accordingly and write in your description LOD_0 140 polys, LOD_1 70 polys... etc
What would you write in the store for your overal poly count? Would it be 140 or would it be the total of all LOD polys together?

If yor model has LOD Stages, you would define the total polycount of all LOD Stages together.

i would just like to point out that although i have done some work for games & film im just a beginner at modeling & am no way a pro, i consider myself a hobbyist really . im in it for the fun i get out of modelling as well as the satisfaction of creating something that looks good from scratch .

cheers henry

Hobbyist you may be Henry, but your models of late are looking professional to me.



I am using FragMOTION for reloaded, and I have figured out how to do LOD on static items by examining one of the stock buildings. (and thanks to these lod threads)

Now, as you might have guessed, my problems are with animated entities using LOD. Like the animations on my immobile items, this is probably me messing up the FPE, but I am not going to fight it at this point. I'll just pass on LOD for anything I make animated for now, since it probably will not be a lot of animated stuff anyway.



Thanks guys, Pros and Hobbyists





I'm in it for the fun I get out of modeling, as well as the satisfaction of creating something that nobody else would want to claim as their own.

Well, not really, that's just the way my models turn out. So, I have learned to live with it. I tried to make an Andalgalornis today, but it ended up looking like a cross between a chicken and a dodo bird.

@Conjured Entertainment- I use fragmotion and milkshape in tandem, but I'm still having LOD problems. Your suggestion actually got the LOD model I created into a level but it's displaying all the models at once. I know this because the models are a huge #

I loaded a stock building into FragMOTION, then examined it carefully.

Then, I made a simple model from scratch using a box, cylinder, and sphere to represent the 3 meshes of different poly counts.

Then I made sure that my bones structure and groups were named exactly the same as the stock building's stuff.

Everything was identical except the meshes, so I loaded it in and just knew it would work, but I got the same results you did.

All 3 meshes showed all the time. I failed. So, I opened them back up and tried to find where I went wrong only to find that I hadn't. The bones and groups and assignments were identical. Then I noticed one small detail. There was a difference in the groups' properties. I had assigned the right meshes to the right bones but the model I made had one less property for the groups than the stock building's groups... the PARENT NODE assignment. I tried and tried to find a way to get my model from scratch to add this property to the groups, but once again, I failed. So I tried something else...



Loaded the stock building into FragMOTION again.

Deleted all three meshes but retained the groups and bone structure.

Created my meshes, and then assigned them to each group assigned to the LOD bones.

Then, I deleted the groups that were created when making my meshes.

Now my model's structure was I identical to the stock building and the groups had the Parent Node assignment intact.

I Reloaded the model into FPSC and bam, it worked like a charm.



I had used the same export settings that I usually do, so nothing special there. If I can figure out how to create that Parent Node assignment when making a model from scratch then I will. Until then, I will just keep using this system of working around that problem.

Awesome! Thanks man! I'm gonna follow your instructions and do a bit of research on the parent node stuff myself. Thanks a million man!



EDIT: Just as a control test I imported the crypt model into FragMotion and exported it as a .x. Simple import then export and I still have the same results.

I have not tested importing meshes. I built mine from scratch using a base file that was prepared from the stock building once I had deleted its meshes. I start with that basic bone/grouping structure and then create the meshes from scratch.



My method is working fine for me. (see attached video) But, I guess it is not suited for legacy models, just new ones. I will be using it for plants a lot, but I guess I will scale it down to a 2 level LOD system instead of 3, just like the models in the foliage folder of the entitybank.



My problem now is a bug in v1.071, that crashes it if you place 18 items near each other.

It's not my model though, because it does it using stock buildings (3 level LOD) or stock foliage (2 level LOD).

Place 18 of the same things near each other (like a garden of plants) and BAM! CRASH on loading for test!



Edit

I found a bug report on a similar issue for v1.007 and crashes at more than 18 items, and the thread said that it has been fixed. I experience it in v1.0071, so it must be v1.008 that fixes it. I guess I need to do back ups then get the latest beta.

Have you had any luck with importing models from elsewhere say milkshape but using the same file structure? TGC needs to give us a little more to go on with LOD's and what is needed to get them to work from any modeling program. Some form of documentation would be nice. BTW what model are you pulling the lod settings from? I've been using the overgrown crypt, maybe I need to use something else.

I would think that kind of documentation should/would come from the community, so if anyone has a pipeline for this in any software (or, if necessary, multiple programs), please share it with the rest of the class! And perhaps post it to syncromesh's site?

v1.008 sorted out the bug, so a crop of 50+ was no problem.





I have not tried Milkshape for LOD yet, because FragMOTION is handling it for me so far. I do use both and I actually prefer milkshape for animating.



I made a base to start from using the stock buildings sandstone structure 1.

Just clicked the first group (LOD_0), then select EDIT > DELETE MESH SELECTION > ALL

That deletes the mesh but not the group.

Do that for all 3 groups, then save the file for a base to start from.

Now, you can open that file to create your new meshes.

If you create 20 new groups when making your LOD_0 mesh, then that is ok, you just have to assign them to the LOD group by double clicking them, then right clicking LOD_0 group then select ADD SELECTION TO GROUP.

Once you have finished adding all of them to their new LOD group, just get rid of the excess groups.

Now, one by one, right click your groups you created and select DELETE.

You should end up with just the LOD groups, which should have a prefix (that stock building uses mesh_ as the prefix as in mesh_LOD_0) or else it will not work as stated above in this thread.

I hope this makes sense for fellow FragMOTION users, because this is a great new feature that is a must for populating our outdoor scenes without creating a massive drop in FPS. This method uses only FragMOTION and the bone structure of that stock model. It should be ok to use that bone structure since it is the only way to make it work. In other words, any working model using this LOD has to be set up this way to work so they will all look alike now matter how many are done from scratch. Maybe TGC will chime in and give us formal permission to use the stock LOD bones, so we can use FragMOTION for reloaded LOD models. I'll ask Rick if it would be okay to post an UGH file of those bones for you guys, so we can avoid the ParentNode thing and get started with this stuff.

Unfortunately since I am much more comfortable modeling in milkshape3d I think something doesn't connect with Fragmotion for LOD's. I did exactly what you said only I merged the milkshape model with the base LOD i made with Fragmotion, I combined the 3 groups I had from milkshape into the proper ones, and deleted the excess. I assigned the models to respective bones, but still no results. Too bad we don't have someone who can create an LOD importer to do away with all this mess. Thanks for all your help man, but maybe someday I can get LOD's working after being made with milkshape. If you do any research into merging milkshape models into an LOD fragmotion base, I would love to hear it. Till then I'll keep trying to find a way.

Back in the day, the merging of stuff when hopping between Milkshape 3D and FragMOTION would only work one way for the stock character bone rig. If you merged the wrong thing first, then it wouldn't work. I can't remember exactly, but I think the bones had to be merged in last. Maybe you should start with the meshes then merge the lod bone set in last. I'll play around with it and see what I can come up with.



EDIT

YAY! My memory served me well this time. (unusual)

It does matter about the order in which you merge.



I just opened Milkshape and created 3 meshes, sphere, a cylinder and a box. (simple to make and easy to distinguish)

I textured them in milkshape too, then saved as a milkshape format. (I saved without bones)

Then I opened that milkshape file in FragMOTION, then merged the LOD base that I had created from the stock model.

Did the assignments for the groups and bones, and deleted the excess groups.

Then I also deleted the texture and material assignments from the LOD base, while retaining the texture and material used for the milkshape meshes.

Exported that as an X file and it worked fine. I hope this helps get you started. This doesn't retain any animations you had, but gets us around the mesh merging issue. Simple animations should not be that difficult to recreate in Frag. Good Luck

That's exactly what I did but I didn't mess with the texture assignments, so maybe that's where I went wrong. I'll give it a go and post results tonight.



EDIT: Wait, did you open the milkshape files first and then merged the LOD base? I did the opposite. Amazing how what seems to be the exact same method but really makes a difference when done the opposite way. I'll give that a go and see where it takes me.



EDIT: EDIT: No dice, I'm still getting the same results in fact they are quite weird. When I place the object (which is a 0,1, and 2) It crashes, but when I place it into the level The 0 doesn't show up, The 1 is half the size and the 2 is full size. Odd.

@Disturbing13

I sent you an email



Edit

"I asked Rick if it would be okay to post an UGH file of those bones for you guys, so we can avoid the ParentNode thing and get started with this stuff."

He passed it on to Lee and Lee said that it