Itoo Software Forum

Forest Pack => Forest Pro (*) => Topic started by: Richard Birket on November 02, 2011, 04:48:00 PM

Title: Level Of Detail (LOD) tools
Post by: Richard Birket on November 02, 2011, 04:48:00 PM
We are about to set out on modelling and animating a very large masterplan consisting of some 20+ office buildings and I am looking at ways to optimise my modelling.

The landscape will include lots of trees and shrubs/hedges and I plan to use ForestPro to distribute our vrayproxy models of trees/shrubs. Does ForestPro have any LOD controls where we could perhaps have 3 different models for each type of tree: a low detail (distant), a medium detail (mid ground) and a high detail (extreme closeups)?

I am looking over the plugin but haven't found anything yet.
Title: Re: Level Of Detail (LOD) tools
Post by: iToo on November 02, 2011, 06:34:33 PM

No sorry, the plugin doesn't include any LOD control. It would be simulated using the camera density falloff with several Forest objects, but it should require a tricky adjustment to get a good result.

Title: Re: Level Of Detail (LOD) tools
Post by: Richard Birket on November 02, 2011, 06:51:23 PM
Is it possible to implement this? It could be governed by a distance from the camera which is controlled by the user:-

eg:
0-15m = high quality LOD
15.1m-30m = medium quality LOD
30.1m-infinity = low quality LOD

I realise that with an animated camera, poly 'popping' could occur as it jumps from one LOD to another, but perhaps you could have an option to lock it once set.
Title: Re: Level Of Detail (LOD) tools
Post by: iToo on November 02, 2011, 07:06:16 PM

Yes, we have not implemented the LOD support until now because the popping issue. We are investigating some alternatives to them, but by now they are only draft ideas...

Title: Re: Level Of Detail (LOD) tools
Post by: George on November 03, 2011, 03:40:24 AM
One thing Cryengine does is something you can do with FP... You have a density falloff, but scale things along the X/Y planes to simulate the same coverage, before finally fading them out. This way the "thinning out" is less noticeable.

As Carlos mentions, for animation at least, LOD popping is an issue, and raytracers don't take kindly do opacity fades between LOD levels (which is what games do).
Title: Re: Level Of Detail (LOD) tools
Post by: Richard Birket on November 03, 2011, 10:06:39 AM
Fair points, but I think the LOD are only optional, and if the user has the ability to 'lock' them so that geometry doesn't pop, this would be fine. Clearly, the LOD approach doesn't work for every situation, but it is a useful tool to have for certain types of animation.

(I used a demo of Twinmotion a while ago, and it also has LOD controls as an option.)
Title: Re: Level Of Detail (LOD) tools
Post by: halil on September 24, 2013, 09:49:02 AM
Hello,

for the latest version of FP (4.12) there is laubwerks plants object support, where it has LOD objects.. Will you be supporting LOD in this version?
Title: Re: Level Of Detail (LOD) tools
Post by: iToo on September 24, 2013, 12:50:32 PM
No, sorry. There is not LOD support on this version.

Regarding Laubwerk plants, this update provides supports for the incoming Laubwerk catalog add-on, which will be released soon.
Title: Re: Level Of Detail (LOD) tools
Post by: MN4869 on February 18, 2014, 10:32:06 AM
Still wishing for LOD.

I'm working on several large residential developments. The largest is a 6km square site - it has around 50 forests.

It's typical to render animations of aerials and close ups. So a quick mode to enable/disable LOD per camera would be great.

And to allow LOD to be dependent on distance to a (fixed) object or camera would be fantastic. We'd save a heap of render time in the studio I'm working for which very much uses the brute force approach to rendering vegetation. The 'pop' would be a non issue because distance would be to a fixed camera. 
 

:)
Title: Re: Level Of Detail (LOD) tools
Post by: iToo on February 18, 2014, 12:21:32 PM
Unfortunately this is not a simple feature for implementing, because we should make deep changes both in the core and the interface. But if it can be done, we'll prioritize this feature for next updates.