Manual LOD creation, possible?

I've noticed that oFusion has the ability to generate LOD levels automagically but what about setting LODs manually? The generation algorithms can do only so much and sometimes creating manual LODs becomes a necessity - however I can't find any feature which would enable the modeller to actually link another mesh object to a certain distance, a feature that's very much present in the ogre mesh format, even on XML level:


<levelofdetail numlevels="1" manual="true">
<lodmanual fromdepthsquared="50000" meshname="otherone.mesh" />
</levelofdetail>


Does oFusion support manual LODs? I just can't find the feature.

I am sorry, I can't help you, but I am also interested in this! If you find a solution, please let us know!

mee too.

That is one of OF main lacks, form my point of view.

Would be nice to cmment what features should this "tool" have

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well I´ve not found what I wrote time ago, but does not matter...
from my point of view, a Lod tool should work as follows. (only opinion)


modeller models Hight and Low resolution model.

*note that high resolution model, like a car, can be of separate elements like wheels, chasis etc, so LOD-ing groups should be taken in mind.

the artis checks LOD button in the modiffiers stack.

LOd parameters appear.

The following checkboxses could appear, and when pressing them could chose them graphically or by namd (using by name selector of MAX), allowing by name selectiong would be handy because if the elements are set in the same coordinates, selecting them can be tricky.

So, basic buttons.

Pick First LOD mesh-groups

Pick Second LOD mesh-groups

Pick N LOD mesh-groups

Once selected, each button box should show the mesh-group name.

Under each LOD level mesh selectiong button, a distance setting , text field could be added so that users enter at what distance wants it to be activated. When setting the distance, more than entering numbers can be more ussefull to set it "graphically", I mean, you set the distance by clicking a button that says "match camera distance", so that when moving around the scene and loking at the objet you decide that that is the correct distance when the lod must activate, you press the button and writes the distance.


So, to add more LOD levels ther should be a button with ADD - Remove LOD level, to add more to the two-trhee I would consider as starndard.

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Having the X-refs running, (exporting I-mean), something I think happens in the pro version, would be great, as you could have each objet-group, in a sepparate scene fine, so you could edit each easyly and confortabily, and then you could have a XXXlod.max file that would call in X-ref mode the mesh-groups that form the whole LOD. objet.

Once you have that objet correctly configured as a LOD, you could again merge as X-ref in a bigger scene.

When writing those lines I´m thinking in a traffic light.
so.

The traffic light LOD scene is build by 2 Hi & lo models that are merged in the : trafic-libht-type1-lod.max as X-ref.

Then when opening the city scene model, I merge the trafic-libht-type1-lod.max and I instance it everywhere this traffic light goes.

Doing things this way means that if I thing that after building I notice that all the traffics light are activating the LOD loading too soon, just by modifying the distances in the trafic-libht-type1-lod.max , will affect all the ones placed around the city. --> great time saving<---

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I think that this´re the things I´ve to say aroung the LOD system. At least by now

Yes, this was implemented early this year, and will be in the upcoming CE versions

What about the Pro version? I'm using the latest Pro and it doesn't seem to have the feature.

Its part of the Version 2 feature set

If you need this asap for your projects, we can port it to your version (open a support ticket for this)

Hello

I just remembered one thing about LOD playing Test Drive Unlimited.

Fading LODS

Yah, they really soft lods that are used in almost all games nowadays. So that new elements appear smoothly with no notice in the scene. Trees, people,cars, everything appears softly.

So this option should be taken in mind to have an "up to date" lod system.

THe los facind time should be accesible with a simple textbotx where we could put the facing seconds.

bye bye

Creating a LOD fading system is very application specific, some will need it to be handled in software while other will need a shader based lod fading system

In any case the Ogre engine needs to be modified if you want a simple system where you define the distances and all all the rest is managed by Ogre (this modifications are easy and should be added to Ogre soon as any needs this feature)

A lod shader based system can be implemented now (but it needs shaders )

I see that there is a section to be filled in on the Object Properties window for Level of Detail. But since it's grayed out I can only assume it's available in the Pro Version.

If this is true I will need info on how to obtain that version. Is there a list of what is available in the pro version that is not in the free version?