Skeletal Mesh Materials LOD Combine

I would like to combine Materials on my Skeletal Meshes in order to reduce draw calls. I would like to do this on higher LODs. People say oh use Simplygon there is a plug in, but the free licence does not seem to offer that. How are people doing this currently? Has anyone had success with the plug in or with simplygon UI? What is the workflow for reducing drawcalls on Skeletal Meshes?

Thanks,

That is excellent question, I’m surprised you haven’t got any replies! I’ll have the same question. Did you ever get this figured out?

What I ended up doing, which I assume is what Epic does and what most people do, is export the FBX from UE4 into Maya and from there use the Symplygon Plugin for Maya. Then re-import a new FBX as an LOD. That’s the only way as far as I can tell.

That sounds like a Major Pain, before I purchase an asset on the store I’m going to ask him how many materials are contains.

Thank you for the reply, and if I find anything different I’ll let you know.

BTW I just heard they will have a skeletal mesh reduction system in editor in 4.22. So that’s cool, wish this kind of thing was on the roadmap.