Changing LOD distances? LODs and foliage?

Development World Creation
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I have three LODs. The highest LOD only kicks in when I’m really close. I assume this is because it takes up most of the screen space.

How can I change the LODs so they switch based on distance? I.e The LODs only scroll when they are in the distance?

Also my LODs don’t work when I use them with the foliage brush.

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Hi Crofty,

To edit the LOD distance, open the asset in the StaticMesh editor. Under the LOD Settings, disable AutoComputeLODDistance. You can then adjust the LOD ScreenSize to change the distance.

As for LOD’s and foliage, this is a known issue that our developers are currently looking into. It should however still work but at different distances than the StaticMesh version. Play around with the ScreenSize setting to see if you experience this the same way. As a workaround, you could create a copy of the StaticMesh asset with different setting to use for foliage.

Thanks, TJ

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Hi TJ,

Thanks for the reply,

Is is standard practice to go down to decimals as low as 0.005 to get the results I want?

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Yeah, it’s fine. Think of it more as a percent. If 1.0 = 100% then 0.005 would be 1/2%.

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Hello,

Right now I have used LOD using screenspace. But When my object is behind another object and it is only half visible,then LOD is not working properly.

I mean it calculating only visible area…

Is there any solution for it?

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I am also interested in finding a solution to this.

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Hello,

Are you seeing this LOD screenspace issue with LOD’s in general or LOD’s on foliage applied with the Foliage Tool?

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It appears to be affecting LOD’s for foliage only. I have tried several models with the same issue.

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I tested this and it seems to be working on my end. However my LODs may not be setup exactly the same. Would you be willing to post a small test project and repro steps?

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you beat me to the post. I reimported the exports from speedtree and the LOD’s appear to be working properly again. I think I done goofed and didn’t have the asset files checked out in source control as the files were locked. Once i checked the files out and reimported the changes took and my LOD are properly working once again. Thanks for your help.

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When i change something in lod and press apply unreal opens an progress bar and stucks forever

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does not work for me
strange how some assets have obvious LOD switching as I am getting closer/further away
while other dont budge at all

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This isnt distance based. nor is it a practical solution for large amounts of assets. Think of the devs that have to spend huge amounts of time changing each assets lod settings to optimize them since LOD settings cant be copied between assets or defined fully in config StaticMeshLODSettings section.
Now its the end of 2023 with no real change to this process…

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Think of actually learning the engine and using the proper presets for foliage/geometry etc. so you do not have to manipulate individual assets?

Though you are 100% correct in that distance has nothing to do with it.

Back in .18 they decided to ■■■■ the engine up and change everything from distances to screen size;
damaging performance for pretty-much everyone in the process.
Biggest issue there being landscapes got the change as well, and size on screen doesn’t work at all for them when components can easily change size based on the overall map size.

There where a distance setting would have retained a more or less similar LOD distribution across changes, you now have to waste your life fully benching performance out and tweaking the value to fractional numbers that make little to no sense / spark floating point precision issues as well.

Don’t worry though, no one at epic cares.

BTW, before someone bit ches.
OFC, the proper way to do LODs is Size on Screen - Distance wouldn’t account for scaling.
The problem is that SOME items should be allowed to be LODd based on Distance - or locked into a Distance Only mode instead. Like Landscape.

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