[project1dev] Re: Animation LODing
- From: Chris Riccobono <crysalim@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 01:28:46 -0700
This level of detail idea is excellent - that combined with using the
scaling feature to make slightly different models odd sizes will make
the screen look totally unique and flowing. We can completely get rid
of repetition eventually this way.
On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 9:41 PM, Alan Wolfe <alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Ok so for those of you that don't know what LOD is, it stands for "Level of
> detail" and in essence means that when things are farther away, or less
> noticeable in some way, that you use less detail cause nobody notices, and
> that saves you processing power and memory.
>
> For example, objects that are farther away (models, mountains, etc) use less
> polygons when they are far away since you can't tell the difference at a
> great distance anyways.
>
> It makes everything way nicer.
>
>
> Anyhow...So animating models is expensive (takes a lot of CPU power).
>
> Today i learned something really bad ass, an animation LODing technique.
>
>
> So what the deal is, is you declare up front how many of a specific type of
> animation are allowed to run at once.
>
> So like... if you have 10 people all walking around using the same
> animation, normally you'd have to pay the cost of processing that same
> animation 10 times.
>
>
> The LOD technique is to say "only allow 3 maximum instances of that
> animation to happen at once".
>
> So what that does is only process 3 animations but have multiple people use
> the same processed animation data.
>
> If you set it to only 1 maximum instance, everyone would animate and walk in
> unison which is really crappy, and if you do too high a number maximum
> instances, too many people are animating and it eats up a lot of CPU.
>
> So you basically find the balance and say "well its hard to tell that they
> are sharing animations if you do 3 max" and then you have your magic number,
> and the game runs faster.
>
> It's kind of cool... just wanted to share it with everyone...
>
Other related posts:
