rdTools

[GX234]

@RecourseDesign

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.

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

[RecourseDesign]

@Jony6234

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

Hi Jony6234,

To create optimal LODs for buildings, create a “Billboard” LOD from rdLODtools - specify “General” as the mesh type option and click “Create” - that should build you a LOD for the building mesh. If the materials come out solid white or pink etc, try ticking the “Bake Lighting” option. If you do bake the lighting, make sure in the Mesh Editors “Preview Scene” to 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.

The manual has detailed instructions on how to make other changes too.

[GX234]

@RecourseDesign

Hi Jony6234,

To create optimal LODs for buildings, create a “Billboard” LOD from rdLODtools - specify “General” as the mesh type option and click “Create” - that should build you a LOD for the building mesh. If the materials come out solid white or pink etc, try ticking the “Bake Lighting” option. If you do bake the lighting, make sure in the Mesh Editors “Preview Scene” to 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.

The manual has detailed instructions on how to make other changes too.

Like I said, I tested it on different buildings and it doesn’t work well anywhere.
Can you show photos, video of rdLODtools used on a building ?

Original

rdLODtools

[RecourseDesign]

@Jony6234

Like I said, I tested it on different buildings and it doesn’t work well anywhere.
Can you show photos, video of rdLODtools used on a building ?

Original

rdLODtools

Hi Jony6234,
Please read my instructions properly and also the manual. If the LOD is a solid color use the “Bake Lighting” option.
Also for your mesh there you will need the “centre pivot” option - all this information is in the manual.
My marketplace page has a picture of buildings with LODs.

[GX234]

@RecourseDesign

Hi Jony6234,
Please read my instructions properly and also the manual. If the LOD is a solid color use the “Bake Lighting” option.
Also for your mesh there you will need the “centre pivot” option - all this information is in the manual.
My marketplace page has a picture of buildings with LODs.

How many times do I have to ask you the same question ?
These photos that be shown in the store of the building and not only are not used rdLODtools!
I read your documents, and the result is extremely bad, so you don’t show how it works on buildings.
She has an extremely poor performance on the forests I tested.

I requested a refund for this asset!
For the first time I want a refund but the asset does not do what is shown in its photos in and the description.

I apologize for my poor English.

[GX234]

Hey man, from Epic got my money back.
So I can’t test anything.

I told you I read your documents!
I told you I was testing all the options and settings, and the results were more than bad!
I asked for help by asking to you show rdLODtools video photos working on a building, you write me meaningless comments…
I don’t want to explain anything to you.
I have not seen a worse asset!

Fortunately, the support for Epic is very good and they refunded my money.
People do i not recommend you to buy this asset.

[RecourseDesign]

Version 1.24 is almost ready for release.

This has some big changes:

Firstly it has a complete rewrite of the rendering of the Billboards. Now it works with almost all meshes.

The second biggest change is that it now uses World Space normals which has dramatically improved lighting interactions with the Billboards.

Along with the update, which I will be submitting soon - there will be an increase in the price taking it to US$25.

Here is a list of all the changes:

Fixed:

1. Planar LODs were bleeding their normals to the other side of their planes
2. Planar LODs were not calculating their normals correctly
3. Created LOD textures were sometimes not copying to the correct place if a material referenced Engine textures
4. Crash when creating billboard with 64 frames and a 256x256 map
5. Added routine to make LOD creation wait for materials to finish compiling

Changed:

1. Changed to new Capture system that works with almost all meshes
2. Moved to WorldSpace Normals
3. Removed Fake Shading
4. Made some of the defaults more in-line with real usage
5. Billboard LODs that are on an angle now do not rotate, act more like planar LODs
6. Frames now start at middle of their rotation to give better visuals

Added:

1. A tilt option to the mesh to help with 270° lighting and low lying objects
2. A Zoom option to the mesh to help with meshes that are deep
3. A tilt option to the rendering to help with mesh depth and low lying objects
4. Normal Strength value adjustment to Material Instances
5. Opacity adjustment to the Material Instances
6. Support for Linux

[RecourseDesign]

Version 1.24 is now live. The manual will be updated very soon too. As there is a sale at the moment, I will hold off increasing the price until after the sale.
Happy LOD making!

[RecourseDesign]

@RecourseDesign

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

Documentation, Demos and Tutorials

Manuals:

• version 1.24: Download or View
• version 1.2: Download or View
• version 1.1: Download or View
• version 1.0 : Download or View

Change Log (Trello): View

Tutorials:

• Tutorial 1: A Simple Tutorial on Trees
• Tutorial 2: Getting Complex Shaders to work with rdLODtools
• Tutorial 3: Getting Better results for Emissive Colors
• Tutorial 4: Capturing and displaying Random Foliage Color Variations

Older version tutorials

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

Version 1.24 is now released and the Manual and Tutorials have been updated.

[FAXCORP]

Hello is it possible to receive a feature to batch make LODs for trees? Or global preset for LOD settings? Thank you, it takes very long time to do every time same dialog for settings and/or change screen percentage/rebake after material change

[RecourseDesign]

Hi FAXCORP - both features would be very handy! I’ll look into adding them for version 1.3. (I’ve made a batch system for textures in a different plugin and it also uses a global settings system so I can port those over to rdLODtools)

[FAXCORP]

Absolutely looking forward to it! Great plugin! Thank you!

[FAXCORP]

Hello, I am doing my trees and it seems that the rD Lod Tools wouldn’t bake normal using Forward Renderer. Could it be? Thanks

[RecourseDesign]

Hi FAXCORP,
Yes, unfortunately the forward renderer does not support some of the UE4 Visualization Shaders that rdLODtools uses to create the normal map (you can see this by using the “Overview Buffer Virtualization” - most of the panels are black).
You can however create the Billboard LODs using the deferred renderer and use them with the forward renderer.

[FAXCORP]

I see! Thank you for the explanation

[RecourseDesign]

rdTexTools has just been released on the Epic Marketplace.

rdTexTools in Code Plugins - UE Marketplace

[FAXCORP]

Is rdLodTools updated on marketplace to 1.3?
Also for me it would be great if I could bake vertex colors and also if I could do regular LOD’s with simple settings to create a few lower triangle count LODs would be so great, I wouldn’t have to rely on other plugins or clunky Unreal implementation on batch LODing, I love this plugin and it would be even better if I could to everything I need with my LODs with this plugin.

[RecourseDesign]

Hi FAXCORP,

No I haven’t released it yet as I’m wanting to add support for the new Megascans Tree effects such as season, health and macro-variation.

I haven’t tested it for a while, but it should be baking any vertex colors into the billboards - but are you meaning baking them into the main LODs? That’s something I can look into…

Yes I have been thinking of things like that to add, I’ve been going through creating a lot of LODs for meshes over the last few weeks and have a number of ideas of things to add like that.

I’ll try and add these type of things over the next few weeks - I can let you know when the next beta is ready if you like?

[FAXCORP]

Yes please I would be happy to test it out!

[FAXCORP]

Hi all, I want to share my project I used rdLodTools extensively with. It really is impressive how I can have hundreds of trees and get 100+ fps with relatively high settings
example vid : Nuke Island Benchmark on different scalability settings (AMD 5700XT) - YouTube
Thanks