LoD

Racer1Racer1 Join Date: 2002-11-22 Member: 9615Members
There has been recent discussion about decreasing "prop" count (among other things). Presumably, this is to meet a certain performance target.

I suggest that level designers be given free reign to add details as they see fit, but be provided an ability to easily mark certain details as "high performance only". When the map initially loads, SN could load those props (or not) depending on the performance level chosen. What is high performance now is standard performance in 2-3 years.

The only problem I can see with this would be if a user changes performance settings mid-game. This would cause details to change in ways that may no longer be appropriate (especially if terrain digging/deforming is implemented). I don't have a great solution for this. Perhaps only load items conditionally when a "new game" is started. So, if the user changes their performance settings, tell the user they start a new game for some of the changes to take effect.

Comments

  • SteveRockSteveRock Join Date: 2012-10-01 Member: 161215Members, NS2 Developer, Subnautica Developer
    yeah we will likely do something like that. it just gets tricky if props actually matter for gameplay, and are not purely visual. one of our goals is to make most props actually matter.
  • SteveRockSteveRock Join Date: 2012-10-01 Member: 161215Members, NS2 Developer, Subnautica Developer
    although this is actually already happening with the default unity LOD system, where the last level is just not drawn, so I think I just need to re-tweak those numbers and see if that helps.
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