terrain lods

[demostenes]

I noticed, that this parametr controls detail of geometry and also distance where is coarse texture blended with detail textures.

Would be possible to separate this into two parametres? Especially with high res coarse texture it would make sense to set blending with detail textures far, far closer (it would have positive visual effect and also save some performance).

[manguste]

I'm afraid coarse texture and geometry go together in our terrain implementation: surface textures for the patch and surface level, coarse texture for a coarse one. Try setting a small LOD value.

[demostenes]

I'm afraid coarse texture and geometry go together in our terrain implementation: surface textures for the patch and surface level, coarse texture for a coarse one. Try setting a small LOD value.

 

Small LOD value decreases quality of geometry and that I want to avoid. On the other side I would prefer to move blending of detail textures far closer, because with settings like LOD 300 texture blending happen far further than 300 and it is waste of performance. I can also very elegantly eliminate tiling by using nice diffuse textures and detail textures only for closer surroundings.

It was just suggestion how to increase performance, because in reality you really dont need to blend diffuse texture with detail textures 1000m away, this can happen 100-200m and you will save some performance with identical, or maybe even better (less tiling) visual quality.

[Guest shane.ploenges]

Hi Demostenes.  Have you tried the Terrain Grabber tool to bake the Detail textures in to the Diffuse map? this lets you reduce your LOD levels a lot without losing the datail textures in the distance.

[manguste]

Small LOD value decreases quality of geometry and that I want to avoid. On the other side I would prefer to move blending of detail textures far closer, because with settings like LOD 300 texture blending happen far further than 300 and it is waste of performance. I can also very elegantly eliminate tiling by using nice diffuse textures and detail textures only for closer surroundings.

 

Shane suggested a good variant: to bake diffuse textures into a coarse diffuse, so you can set any LOD level for geometry. Tha's the variant we recommend as well.

 

I'll double check with developers if it's possible to separate coarse diffuse and geometry distances, but I doubt that's possible without major changes to the terrain implementation.

[demostenes]

Shane suggested a good variant: to bake diffuse textures into a coarse diffuse, so you can set any LOD level for geometry. Tha's the variant we recommend as well.

 

I'll double check with developers if it's possible to separate coarse diffuse and geometry distances, but I doubt that's possible without major changes to the terrain implementation.

 

Great, thanks.

[demostenes]

Hi Demostenes.  Have you tried the Terrain Grabber tool to bake the Detail textures in to the Diffuse map? this lets you reduce your LOD levels a lot without losing the datail textures in the distance.

 

I do this regularly and have no problem with qulity of textures. My point was, that when I decrease LOD to achieve closer bleding, I also loose lots of geometry detail. So this was reason why I asked, if it is possible to separate theese two parametres.

 

Generally I dont need detail textures in distance, it is far better to have good diffuse texture for distance (you will have no problems with tiling and you can eachive even fotorealistic quality in case you use real photos...).

[manguste]

Ok, got you. Let's say it's a candidate into the wish list (coarse to be rendered close from the camera, geometry LOD to be changed only further away), but in the nearest future we won't be able to implement it. If the situation changes, we'll surely go back to your suggestion.

[demostenes]

Ok, got you. Let's say it's a candidate into the wish list (coarse to be rendered close from the camera, geometry LOD to be changed only further away), but in the nearest future we won't be able to implement it. If the situation changes, we'll surely go back to your suggestion.

 

Fair enough, thanks.