Hi. How is it going with the new version and UE5 compatibility? Thanks
Hi FAXCORP,
Iāve got version 1.3 pretty much ready now (just need to write the documentation) but there is a bug in UE5 that stops itās from working so I just need to sort that out.
Version 1.3 has 2 new LOD types, Single Triangle Billboards (TriSprites) which are about as fast and lightweight as a billboard can be, and Cubic LODs which create a cube with the meshes textures on it, and can be edited in blender to add simple detail.
It also adds a top plane to Planar LODs (this actually makes them look pretty good from the top)
There are also a heap of context menu commands for bulk editing mesh LODs and materials.
Version 1.4 will have the Octahedral Impostor support (about 85% done) and dual axis billboards (about 75% done) - both those will share their textures so you can have an Impostor LOD and a billboard LOD further away as a good optimization. Also those textures will be around 12.5% of the memory the current Octahedral Impostors use. It will also have season and health support (for Megascans trees) and a splat-map based health system.
Hopefully Epic will fix the UE5 bug soon (or I find a work-around) and Iāll submit them to the marketplace.
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version 1.3 has now been submitted.
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rdLODtools version 1.3 has just been released on the Epic Marketplace.
You can find a list of new features (there are a lot!) and improvements here:
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Very excited for 1.4 and the Octahedral Impostor support. Any update on how the progress is going with UE5 and when this may be available?
I cant decide if I should save that task or jump in with with Ryan Brucks.
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Hi Draughn101 - Iām just waiting for a few more issues to be fixed in UE5 related to Impostors. Also, there will quite possibly be an update soon that provides masking and WPO for nanite at good speeds - it may pay to wait for another week or so if you can before making any design decisions on your foliageā¦
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Thanks! Looking forward to the update.
Our team did jump into 5.1 over the weekend and ran tests with a few different nanite tree/foliage combinations, and, while great up close, it has the same issues with killing leaves at long distances. Itās so performant and beautiful up close, but we canāt seem to figure out how to use them on a map with any draw distance.
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Ok. What Iāll do is finish off the product Iām making atm (just doing the example scene and documentation and a polish) and then concentrate on finishing off just the Impostor creation part of version 1.4 and release that - then that will mean I can spend more time getting the other things such as health/season working well for a sub-version update.
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I had an opportunity to ask some questions about Nanite/foliage in a recent AMA and it does sound like imposters will be here to stay. Rendering AMA
Are you still waiting on changes from the Unreal team to get imposters over the finish line?
Iām just finishing up another product atm - I think the UE5 bugs that were holding progress back have been fixed now so Iāll hopefully be able to get through the last things to get OIās finished once Iāve released this other product.
I hope that the nanite developers donāt keep trying to add support for things at the expense of rendering speed .
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Hi. Is it possible to make a cubic LOD using my own custom shape for my buildings? Because just cube doesnt work due to intricate shapes
Hi FAXCORP - You can make any shape you want - but you first make a cube with the Cubic LOD tool - then export the textures to blender and download the Cube (with LOD UVs) and set the textures to that cube.
Then itās pretty easy - you can see the black bits in the textures - āCutā the faces in Mesh Edit Mode in Blender and slide them until they match their adjacent edges (then delete the black bits).
You can make them as complex or as simple as you wishā¦
Thereās more information and a link to download the cube at:
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Fantastic! Thanks
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Hey, not sure whether itās meant to work like this, but when Iām creating Planar Lods, your plugin creates 2 material instances per LOD, no matter whether I tell it to cast shadows, or not.
If itās casting shadows it makes sense to have one LOD material set to cast, and the other not.
Itās duplicating draw calls though when not.
Hi kaffeekranz,
It shouldnāt be creating two material instances - it sounds like one of them isnāt being used - try deleting both and then recreating the LOD - only 1 should be created.
Please let me know how it goes.
Hey Recourse, Howās the progress on 1.4 going?
Hi Draughn101,
Iāll be getting that out the door soon - Iāve had to write some new items for the marketplace as my main income has dried up, they should be finished very soon and then Iāll go back and clean up 1.4ā¦
Im trying to do billboard LOD but my planes arent responding to camera position/orientation in the level, works ok in static mesh window, what could be the issue?
Hi FAXCORP - is it possible the mesh is on an angle in the scene? The billboards can only rotate when they are straight up.
If not, can you let me know which version of UE, and any specifics about the project (eg forward rendering etc).
Thanks for the reply! Even though I reset the rotations to zero, problem still persisted (maybe float precision), so I bypassed the IF node in the Calc Angle func and its working great now!
I think it could be a Parameter Switch option to disable the rotations on not perfectly straight meshes, because even at angles it works good, thanks
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