What's the best app to do LODs?

StraightDraw84

Hey guys/gals, I wanted to do some LODs in Maya 2018. I already know about the reduce function but is there any other app you'd suggest I use? (other than simplygon)


Thanks

poopipe

Instalod looked pretty good. 

Houdini has some good tools,  you have to put a bit of work in to get close to simplygon but if you're just working on your own stuff it's free. 

Ue4 has some pretty respectable Lodding tools.  I expect you can export from that.

It's important to remember that an automatic tool cant work around shitty UVs any better than you can - you'll get the best results by planning for LODs right from the start

StraightDraw84

Thanks for the info. anything else you can think of?

Eric Chadwick

What is the end result you want to achieve? It all comes down to that... what kind of real-time situation are you dealing with, and what is your target hardware? Open world on a PC is very different, from an infinite-runner on mobile, from a fixed-position VR experience on a Vive.

StraightDraw84

FPS/VR so I want to avoid a lot of popping lol

Mark Dygert

Simplygon is great because it handles skeletal meshes, it will rebake textures and is just all around fan-fuckin-tastic. It also does ProxyLOD, which batches a few different meshes into one single mesh. It is also the tech under the hood of Unreal's LOD system, which is pretty awesome but doesn't handle skeletal meshes, yet.

StraightDraw84

Yeah can't use simplygon though

TheGabmeister

For hard-surface objects for VR, I found from experience that it is best to create the LODs manually since the popping issue stemming from a change in silhouette, baked lighting, and other details is pretty apparent in VR. For organic shapes on the other hand, you can use the ones suggested by the others above.

StraightDraw84

I've been using a combo of decimation master in zbrush and transfer uvs in maya, it's doing a decent job

Neox

Mark Dygert said:

Simplygon is great because it handles skeletal meshes, it will rebake textures and is just all around fan-fuckin-tastic. It also does ProxyLOD, which batches a few different meshes into one single mesh. It is also the tech under the hood of Unreal's LOD system, which is pretty awesome but doesn't handle skeletal meshes, yet.

Simplygon costs 25k a year i guess this option is locked pretty well behind a paywall  

StraightDraw84

Neox said:

Mark Dygert said:

Simplygon is great because it handles skeletal meshes, it will rebake textures and is just all around fan-fuckin-tastic. It also does ProxyLOD, which batches a few different meshes into one single mesh. It is also the tech under the hood of Unreal's LOD system, which is pretty awesome but doesn't handle skeletal meshes, yet.

Simplygon costs 25k a year i guess this option is locked pretty well behind a paywall  

Correct

poopipe

The Internet suggests simplygon is free to the right people