I think I understand the basic idea behind LOD (Level of Detail), and its use in reducing the poly counts of entities that are far from the camera, thus improving fps performance.

That said, I have no idea how to set-up LOD for an entity, nor how to load and use it in Reloaded???? I model mostly in MilkShape.

I use MipMaps when creating my .DDS files, and I thought that these were an attempt to accomplish something similar to LOD, Can anyone point me in the right direction on LOD?

Thanks

LOD is relatively straightforward but it's also of limited usability.



You need to follow a strict naming convention for LOD meshes: typically, "LOD_0" for high, "LOD_"1 for medium and "LOD_2" for low.



Your LOD models need to each be single mesh objects (no groups or hierarchy).



You need to have all LODs in the same scene when exporting.



From there it can get a little dicey because Reloaded doesn't parse out names like it should and is easily confused. So, LOD can easily be broken causing the wrong LODs to display if you aren't really sure of what you are doing when it comes to export options and scene hygiene. Depending on the software and how it organizes meshes and the scene root, it may not even be possible to export working LODs. Also be advised that (from what I have last heard) that the lightmapper uses the lowest LOD. Which may or may not look awful.

The way Milkshape is set up for some reason you can't make an LOD model solely with it. I use Milkshape to model and Fragmotion to create the LOD. Maybe this vid will help. Its a bit difficult to exlpain without a lengthy post.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m82QZZ5Ws3M