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rdLODtools

Unreal Engine Marketplace
#1

This is the support area for rdLODtools.
Please feel free to ask any questions or suggest feature improvements here.

Documentation, Demos and Tutorials

Manuals:

Change Log (Trello): View

Tutorials:

  • Tutorial 1 - Billboarding a simple tree: Download or View
  • Integrating with FPS Game Starter Kit (By SB): View
  • More coming soon

Frequently Asked Questions:

  1. Is the plugin needed for packaged games?
    A. No, the new meshes don’t need the plugin, they can be packaged to any platform.

  2. My new LOD appears black or transparent (nothing there)
    A. This is probably caused because there were still materials being compiled. Pause for a few seconds and try again.

  3. My new LOD appears very dark - how do I fix this?
    A. You can adjust the brightness of the materials by either adjusting the “Gamma” from the rdLODtools window or by using the “Edit Mats” button, it will open the material instances from which you can adjust various options including brightness via the ColTweak option. See Chapter 2 of the manual for more information.

#2

Version 1.1 is now out. New Features are listed in the Change Log . UE4 versions 4.20 - 4.22 are now supported.

#3

New versi0n does not download from Marketplace, only 1.0.1

#4

Thanks, I got the new version, great service!!

#5

Version 1.2 has now been released. New Features and changes are listed in our Trello page. 4.20-4.23 are now supported.

#6

I think one of the biggest performance gains comes from setting up the “Screen Size” manually but it takes forever if you have a lot of meshes to change. Does this does automate that process or does it auto create the “Screen Size”? Can you set the “Screen Size” to be more aggressive for each LOD in your tool?

#7

<Answer copied from Marketplace Q&A> Hi JohnADaniels,
Yes I agree that the screen-size adjustments can take a bit of tweaking to get right - rdLODtools has an option to specify the screen size of the new LODs and remembers the last settings you used so it’s a matter of trying it, if it needs to be adjusted open the rdLODtools window again and just change the screen size option and regenerate. I may add some more options in the future for adjusting all LOD screen sizes at once.

#8

Hi John,
It looks like the Material Functions are missing - they should be in projects “Content/rdLODtools/MaterialFunctions” folder. If they are missing, you could create a new billboard LOD for a mesh which should then copy the functions back.

#9

Hi there, I noticed in one of the questions posted on the marketplace asking about the possibility of implementing the Octahedral Impostor system that Ryan Brucks worked on. Is that something you still plan on putting in 1.3 or 1.4?

#10

Hi KernalPanic, yes I would still like to work on this, but in version 1.4 rather than 1.3.

#11

Hello, I just bought your plugin and tried it out and it has been working great!

The only issue I find, is that my billboards are overly lit green sometimes when I get close to the billboard (when it’s still the billboard LOD.).

I have the Sunhandler in my scene, and enabled fake lighting which fixed the issue from a distance.
But still when I get closer they become really bright green, even with Gamma set to 0.

Do you know how to fix that, because your plugin is the perfect solution for creating fast billboard lods in UE4!

Here is a gif so you can see.

After compressing the gif i noticed you can’t really see it… so if you want some screenshots i’ll happily provide them.

EDIT:
After i turned around the camera, it seems all of the billboards are white for some reason?
Here’s a screenshot

#12

Hi, any news about version 1.3 and 1.4?

#13

Hi Recourse

Sometimes I try to make billboards and just get a pink mesh:

Screenshot_2.jpg
Screenshot_2.jpg1291×972 180 KB

Do you have any idea?

Many thanks :slight_smile:

#14

Hi ClockworkOcean,

That can happen when rdLODtools can’t find any textures in the meshes materials.

You can still create a billboard from it though - when you create the billboard, tick the “Bake Lighting” option - that will then use the original materials while rendering.

The ‘Bake Lighting’ option uses the lighting you are using in the Mesh Editors ‘Preview Scene’ - it is best if you turn the ‘Directional Light Intensity’ down to 0, set the ‘CubeMap’ to Null and make sure the ‘Sky Lighting’ is enabled, bright white and set to about 2.0.

If you’re creating a static scene with static lighting - you can bake the lighting in by using the ‘Directional Light’ in the Preview Scene, and altering the SkyLight color can create some interesting results too.

Remember to set them back after creating the Billboard…

#15

Much appreciated! :cool:

#16

Try to load your plugin for 4.26 but it is not listed if i need to select a slot for plugin

#17

Hi RatByteOfficial - Is it possible rdLODtools is already installed for 4.26 - did you search for it in the UE plugins window? If it’s not there, maybe there was a problem with the website, you could maybe try installing it again? I’ve tested multiple times and haven’t had any issues…

#18

Hello, can you show how this asset can be used on a building ?
I bought the asset yesterday and tested it on my forest, but the result was a very large decrease in FPS.
Now I’m testing it on a building but the result is very bad.

rdLODtools

Original

#19

Hi Jony6234, The only way the extra LODs would decrease FPS is if you have removed intermediate LODs before the Billboard/Planar LODs and UE4 is rendering the LOD0 at further distances. You’ll need to just remove the lowest LOD’s and replace the “Screen Size” they were at. E.G if the lowest LOD in the mesh was at about 0.3 - make sure you specify 0.3 for the Billboard LOD once you have removed that one. The higher the ScreenSize, the closer the LOD appears.

Regarding the Building - the LODs for that should be created as Billboard rather than Planar.

I hope this helps,
Richard.

#20

On the issue of buildings can you help ?
I can’t use any buildings with rdLODtools.