Few questions regarding LOD (and foliage tool chunks)

Development World Creation
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Question 1:
If I’m not using the landscape terrain for my level and instead use a custom static mesh from blender or 3dsm as my “terrain”, can I somehow make parts of it change LODs the further away from the player, while the closer parts, around the players position would still be at lod0?

To simplify: Can I have multiple LOD levels on a single mesh? or would I simply have to break the larger mesh up into pieces and switch out the pieces seperately.

Question 2:
Is it generally more efficient to use foliage chunks for 200-300 pieces of objects (stones, debris, trees) rather than using LODs for the same amount of manually placed objects?

To explain a bit:
I have custom static meshes for various objects that I’m going to need a lot of. Such as various small stones/debris and trees. I have different LOD models for each object set up and when I place them one by one, everything is working perfectly. (I use seperate colors to see the lods changing more clearly)

However, I’ve noticed when using the foliage tool,it ignores my LOD levels (shows all LODs as lod0) and instead it seems to load the trees in chunks. Now I’m curious which is generally a more efficient way? (ignoring the time it takes to place manually vs drawing with the foliage tool)

Thanks.

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i wouldnt use lod’s unless you really needed kind of cheats the gamer…Try to sequence everything depending on the game you have.

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What do you mean, cheats the gamer? How? If it’s done well enough its barely visible, right?

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LODs are used in almost every game so there is nothing wrong with using them.

5

That’s what I thought.

However, I still haven’t found a solution to the original problem. I’m using 4.9

How can I get foliage tool to work with lods. The problem is that when I spawn a object through the foliage tool which has lod levels added,the model will load all the lods at lod0. (Black, white, green models)

I’ve tried multiple different models. I’ve tried creating the lod levels in 3dsm, as well as in the UE editor itself. I’ve tried different exporting settings etc etc with absolutely no luck. It always behaves the same. When I place the meshes without the foliage tool, by hand, it works perfectly.

In threads such as these, people mention using LODs with the foliage tool. I’d still really appreciate any tips.