A LOD viewing demo tool for the game-object creation.

Game Engine Game Engine Resources
1

Hi

I made a simple mesh LOD viewing demo/concept tool. This is for the game-object creation phase only.

The base idea is, the user creates needed LOD meshes and give to those a ‘min’ and ‘max’ viewing distance properties.

Then the user append the ‘MView’ group to the scene, switch to the camera view and start the BGE.

User can now use a mouse free view and adjust the camera distance to the game-object with mouse wheel.
The LOD’s should change accordingly to the viewing distance and see how the game-object is appearing.

My original idea from past:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=63928&highlight=view

Attachments

LOD_view_demo.blend (128 KB)

2

Interesting, but with a small problem.
If the object itself is moving to/away from the camera, the dist property of the camera does not change = no LOD

[Edit]

Ahh… no I understand. It is a tool for preview the meshs not LOD itself.

I think that could com in handy :).

Do you want me to move this to the resource forum?

3

Hi Monster,

Thanks

I’m not sure about correct terminology, but it is some sort of viewer :smiley:

I use now following terminology:
*Game-object

  • Ready object. All included
  • Contains all needed sub-object/s, including LOD’s, for the target game engine.
  • Can contain just one sub-object. Example a simple static bush with one texture.
  • Can contain a multiple sub-objects with different textures and functions. Example Extra 300 :wink:

*Sub-object

  • A smallest building part of the Game-object.
  • The sub-object can have a LOD status, if it’s clearly meant to present a larger object from distance with lower polygon number.

So, I made a new version:

  • Visible sub-object name/s list. The file name is presenting game-object name at this point.
  • Total sub-object polygon counter
  • Viewing distance counter.
  • Sub-object mode selection with 0-9 numkeys and mode number display.

The object modes are meaning a different in-game modes.

Just one example for the object modes:

  • Intact game-object(mode1).
  • Damaged game-object(mode2).
    -Destroyed game-object(mode3).

Note
This tool is still just demo a without any load/save functions.

Yes, actually you can move this topic to the resource forum.

Attachments

LOD_view_demo_2.blend (197 KB)

4

This doesn’t appear to do anything at all. Is this meant for Blender 2.49 or 2.5? In 2.5 I just see a jumble of differently-modeled boxes and a camera. Going into the game engine does absolutely nothing and nothing works, but the View Distance counter increases, so I guess that’s something.

5

This is made with 2.49.

Tool is meant for the object modeling. User can view how the LOD-transitions are appearing in BGE.

Those boxes are just for example purpose.

I made a new version with new features. I will write the instructions later on.

Attachments

LOD_view_demo_3.blend (213 KB)

6

Hi

I made a more practical demo version, with new features.

In this version I use ~18m long WW2 barrage balloon(bb) game-object model from my past AH h2h terrain making days.

Each bb-lod sub-object has an ‘propl’ named string property, which specifies the given sub-object min/max visibility distances.

Current BGE Controls:
Mouse movements: The viewing point position control.
Mouse wheel up/down: Viewing distance/zoom control (-1/+1 step).
Mouse left/right buttons: Viewing distance/zoom control (-5/+5 step).
H-key: Toggle HUD off/on. The HUD content is same as a debug properties.

User can use any texturing and view-port shading modes.

(edit)

This tool is a Blender/BGE community property and free for use/dev. by anyone. Please, kindly share your improvements. Thanks.

Attachments

BBys1.blend (346 KB)

bb-d.jpg1024×773 25.5 KB

7

Hi

Anybody tried this yet? Is it making any sense?

How this is working in Linux or MAC?

Thanks