CHAPTER 6

image

Creating LODs

The first question to answer is what is a LOD in a video game?

This is an acronym for Level of Detail.

If you have played a game recently, you will have seen LODs in action. When you see models “popping” as you get closer to them, this is the game engine swapping between LOD versions from the lowest to highest detailed version of the mesh. A good LOD is not noticeable.

LODs are a required optimization to ensure that a game’s framerate stays optimal when drawing large expansive scenes full of objects. The principle is simple. Objects further away from the player will render at a lower LOD level meaning less geometry is drawn. ...

Get 3ds Max Modeling for Games, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.