How can I set up HLODs?

Development World Creation
,
1

Hi, I am having some trouble understanding how to create HLODs, especially for when not using world partition (UE 5.5.3).

I have watched multiple tutorials, but they either show how it’s done with world partition, or it’s an older video where I don’t have the same settings or buttons. It feels like every youtuber does it differently, or maybe I am just to tired to understand.

I have a few (a lot of) questions regarding HLODs and how to create them.

  1. Going to the Build → Build HLOD, is that only for when using World Partition?

  2. Window → Hierarchical LOD Outliner, is that for when creating HLODs when not using World Partition?

  3. The Documentation states that I need to define your Cluster Generation Settings for the HLOD levels you need. But how and where do I define that? (The link to Cluster generation in the documentation is broken)

  4. Does HLOD work with Streaming Levels? Are there anything I should keep in mind when using both?

  5. Is there any (good) step by step process for creating HLODs out there?

I appreciate any help I can get :slight_smile:

2

Why do the statues get placed in different layers?

image
image970×822 64.3 KB

And why does SM_Statue get placed under LODLevel-2 when SM_Statue 2 and 3 is under LODLevel-1?

image
image980×1200 55.3 KB

Why is LODLevel-0 Empty?

Sorry for so many questions but I am so confused.

3

So this is what I have found out:

  • I was first of all very tired that day

About creation of HLODs:

  • Clusters are basically the group of actors in your level that later will become the Proxy Mesh.

Before generating Clusters, you need to specify the Cluster Settings.

Step by step process:

  1. Go to Window → and open the Hierarchical Lod Outliner (HLOD Outliner)
  2. In the HLOD Outliner, press the “+” next to Hierarchical LODSetup to create a new HLOD Level.
  3. Under World Settings → HLODSystem → Hierarchical LODSetup → and then expand the HLOD Level dropdowns for each HLOD Level and specify the Cluster Generation Settings
  4. In the HLOD Outliner, select Regenerate Clusters to generate the clusters.
  5. Now you can Select the Generate Proxy Mesh to generate the proxy meshes.

To make changes to Clusters, you can change the Generate Cluster settings and regenerate clusters again.

I am not 100% sure, but I think that the LODLevel-0, 1, 2 etc is the same as when creating LODs for meshes? Like LOD 0 is the original mesh and then the last lod level (in this case 2) is the one with best performance?

image
image152×131 1.32 KB

4

More question regarding the HLOD settings: HLODs Simplification method - what do they do?

5

You can set up HLODs (Hierarchical Level of Detail) by organizing your assets according to distance from the viewer. To optimize performance and maintain visual quality, use software tools such as Unity or Unreal Engine.