The lod of all instances in HISM, act all like the same, the distance that only matter is the distance of the fist instance.
Everithing looks working fine with a mesh with more then 927 triangles, but with less that 927 the instances all depends from the first instance.
1 Like
I have the same problem. Has the problem been solved?
1 Like
You can’t select individual HISMs or ISMs - it selects the HISM/ISM component and all the instances.
Foliage tool has way to select individual ones by doing a line trace to find the instance index and just editing that - but it’s an extra layer.
1 Like
I still have the same problem in Unreal 5.4.
The HISM, as I understand it, is supposed to display the different instances with the corresponding LOD as if the different objects displayed would have been displayed without being instantiated. This is based on examples I’ve found online, such as this one:
But what I have here is an HISM that uses the same LOD for all instances, regardless of their distance from the camera. This means that when I move away from my objects the LODs don’t change, they all stay on LOD0 and suddenly all the objects switch to LOD1.
To see the difference, I put control objects (right) alongside the HISM instances (left). The control objects change LOD one by one, as I move away. I expect HISM to do the same. Have I misunderstood something or is this a bug?
I did some more testing and managed to get the effect of having different LODs for the mesh instances of a single ISM. ISMs aren’t supposed to manage LODs but actually do, HISMs are supposed to manage them but actually don’t…
What’s more, LOD coloring doesn’t work on ISMs even if they display different LODs:
In both cases (Hierachical LOD Coloration and Mesh LOD Coloration), I got a gray screen and nothing more. This may be expected and logical if ISMs aren’t supposed to handle LODs, but if they do, they should handle coloration.
Things may be a bit mixed up on the instancing side in the engine at the moment.
Ok I tested it in 5.4 and it seems to be bugged.
The HISM component is meant to have the lod behavior and the ISM is supposed to not have LOD support, but now it’s the opposite.
I have to add that in the mesh LOD visualization the HISM shows lods changing, but not per instance. While ISM in the mesh LOD visualization don’t show the LOD color change, but they actually change LOD in game.
Edit: Instanced Static Mesh Component in Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.4 Documentation | Epic Developer Community in the official documentation for UE 5.4 it’s stated that:
Traditionally, hierarchical instanced static meshes (HISMs) uniquely applied levels of details (LODs) per instance, while an ISM applied LODs to the overall component bounds. However, for projects created in 5.4 or later, you can use LODs per instance for an ISM.
But what about HISM? What’s the point of having them if ISM component now has LODs support?
1 Like