When generating Proxy Meshes using the Hierarchical LOD system I noticed that transparent objects that are part of the generation seem to lose the alpha.
Can someone explain to me what exactly it is that the HLOD system does when it generates proxy meshes?
Merging textures?
Creating new material for the proxy?
If it creates a new material, does it use the existing material and uses an instance of it?
Would be nice to get a better understanding of how this tool works, as as far as I know there is no documentation on it.
Also I use it together with InstaLOD, however for the tests I have done so far I havent used the ‘simplify mesh’ option.
Hierarchical LOD can automatically replace large numbers of detailed meshes with a few simple meshes when they are far away. This helps you achieve much higher quality levels when viewing objects up close, and faster overall performance for your level. In order to get the most benefit from HLOD, you will need the Simplygon SDK (requires a Simplygon license). Simplygon is required to generate a proxy mesh with a reduced number of polygons. Without it, the system will only bake out and combine sections that use different materials into a single draw call.
Thanks for the reply. It doesn’t really answer my question though! =]
As I stated in my original post, I am using InstaLOD, as opposed to Simplygon, for LOD generation. I was under the impression that InstaLOD was capable of doing it as well. (If that’s not the case I’ll have to contact the InstaLOD team.)
Does this mean that to use the reduction with the HLOD system you can only do it with Simplygon?
Now, if I understood correctly, HLOD uses the LOD of the meshes itself if Simplygon(or InstaLOD) is not installed.
About the transparency issue, the meshes I see this issue occur with were made using ‘traditional’ methods. (Setting up LODs inside of Maya) So it is unrelated to InstaLOD.
The transparency issue sounds like it is a bug related to materials, as the LOD’s that were created manually have the materials set up properly.
Saying that, it would be nice to get a quick run through of what the HLOD system does without any LOD plugins installed.
Merging textures? Creating new
material for the proxy? If it creates
a new material, does it use the
existing material and uses an instance
of it?
Thanks!
PS. I understand that InstaLOD is not ralted to Epic, so you cant really say much about that.