LOD again!

[colin55]

After reading another post about LOD I thought I would show these screenshots from Kickstarter County

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after pulling out for a wider shot

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The second shot makes it look like the original Trainz where we didn't have opening doors rather than TANE

 

[oknotsen]

And what exactly is your question?

Or do you just want to state that the object still works exactly the same as in TS12?

 

[LNERlover5]

I think what's occurring is because T:ANE LOD scales far too aggressively, we're seeing a simpler model too close to the camera. TS12 would require you to be further back for the next LOD stage to trigger. Something to watch out for in the next hotfix. (Whenever it's done cooking...).

Jack

 

[bendorsey]

If the engine house doors are animated to open in the presence of a loco within the doors trigger radius shouldn't they stay open no matter what the view distance?

Ben

 

[JCitron]

The LOD targets are created by the original content creator. I know I'm blaming the content creator again, but seriously the game engine is only drawing what's in the next list when the mesh is specified to appear.

One of the more frustrating things I've come across is some models using the same LOD mesh for various stages. This does nothing but break the model and it is rejected immediately by T:ANE and rightly so.

John

 

[LNERlover5]

If the engine house doors are animated to open in the presence of a loco within the doors trigger radius shouldn't they stay open no matter what the view distance?

It depends on how they're constructed. If they open inwards you could assume the next LOD stage hides them. The doors themselves could reference a simpler non-animated model for their next LOD stage, or they could be culled completely. I wouldn't know without knowing the asset.

 

[oknotsen]

If the engine house doors are animated to open in the presence of a loco within the doors trigger radius shouldn't they stay open no matter what the view distance?

As far as I know the asset is one of these:
FMA Engine shed W-E, kuid:149987:25362
FMA Engine shed N-S, kuid:149987:25363
Both made by Vendel.

The door is part of the LOD. It is closed in the less detailed LOD, so it no longer has to show the detailed inside of the asset.
No animation.

 

[andi06]

This is likely to be an issue with the script controlling the doors.

Where an asset uses mesh-table LOD and has animations or other effects that occur at mor than one LOD level then the script needs to handle these animations as if they were totally different meshes. If this isn't done then when TANE switches meshes in response to the LOD code the state of the animations will fail to match.

[Edit: alternately the matter could be as described by oknotsen ]

 

[johnwhelan]

The LOD targets are created by the original content creator. I know I'm blaming the content creator again, but seriously the game engine is only drawing what's in the next list when the mesh is specified to appear.

One of the more frustrating things I've come across is some models using the same LOD mesh for various stages. This does nothing but break the model and it is rejected immediately by T:ANE and rightly so.

John

The mesh table lod is very aggressive sometimes, it seems to be if you're more than two inches away then you're in the next lod. The content creator has no control over this other than to not put in lod. The other approach which I have used myself is to add polys to the high detail so the drop to the second level takes place at the two inch boundary and the drop to the third level takes place at a more reasonable 30 meters. LOD is not a popular topic with content creators at the moment and I happen to get berated by my beta testers for cutting too many polys.

Cheerio John

 

[JCitron]

The mesh table lod is very aggressive sometimes, it seems to be if you're more than two inches away then you're in the next lod. The content creator has no control over this other than to not put in lod. The other approach which I have used myself is to add polys to the high detail so the drop to the second level takes place at the two inch boundary and the drop to the third level takes place at a more reasonable 30 meters. LOD is not a popular topic with content creators at the moment and I happen to get berated by my beta testers for cutting too many polys.

Cheerio John

I've noticed the latter up in the Trainz Dev.

Overall it is a bit aggressive, which is one of the things that Chris is working on with the guys there. Hopefully future versions of Trainz will not have this issue as this processes are refined more and more.

 

[LNERlover5]

LOD is not a popular topic with content creators at the moment and I happen to get berated by my beta testers for cutting too many polys.

It's fine when it works properly. I like to think my later and WIP models are significantly better because of the current hysteria around getting it right, otherwise I would just be quite lazy about it.

You can never cut too many when you factor in viewing range. For example, my chassis library tops out at around 44 polygons when you're far away, but the fact that the cuts are gradual at closer ranges means you can't really see the transitions.

Jack

 

[bendorsey]

Of course this entire thread could have been avoided if the locos were all the way in (or out) of the engine house.:hehe:
It wouldn't matter when the doors closed - they wouldn't have ended up in the middle of the locos.

Ben

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

The asset uses an LM.txt type of LOD scheme which is known to be bugged in current versions of TANE. Nevertheless, it has not been constructed and configured in a way that would make the transition to the lowest detail mesh (LOD2) invisible to the user even if the LOD system wasn't bugged. The last LOD (with doors closed) appears when the asset still covers 40% of the screen. With the doors being such a big part of the model, this transition would be very difficult to disguise even at much longer distances. I think it's just a case of LOD2 having the wrong design.


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