Wayne, you spoil us with choices.
As you have stated, all 3 methods have their pros and cons.
I will run with the pack on this one. Method #2 if it makes life easier for you.
Also thanks for all your work on the exporter. The wealth of tutorials available for Blender coupled with your exporter is what will entice potential new modellers to our community.
Cheers,
Marek.
Blender 2.8 Updates to the exporter
#12
Posted 15 July 2019 - 05:15 PM
After experimenting a lot with various methods to specify LODs I am now leaning toward using Blender's new collection feature.
http://www.elvastower.com/forums/uploads/monthly_07_2019/post-8-0-91799600-1562939345_thumb.jpg
Basically you create MAIN as a collection.
MAIN contains a sub collection for each LOD, in this case MAIN_0700 and MAIN_2000.
And these LOD collections contain all your parts.
You create parts and drag and drop them into whatever LOD you want. You can see in the example there is a BodyLOD1 in MAIN_0700 and a lower res BodyLOD2 in MAIN_2000.
Some of the advantages over our existing methods are:
+ easy to assign LODs by dragging parts around
+ easy to change distance level settings by editing LOD collection name, eg rename MAIN_0700 to MAIN_0500
+ good visibility of settings -all your LOD assignments show in the outline panel
+ you don’t need a separate ‘dlevel’ control panel, enable or disable LODs using the check boxes in the outliner
+ it will be easy to add support for multiple LOD controllers, ie the main body has lods at 700 and 2000, but the wheels could have lods at 100, 200 and 500.
+ a part can be assigned to more than one LOD
+ integrates well with Blender rendering - you can select what LOD appears in your render
+ it uses standard Blender features - there's no hidden properties
+ the objects 'Collection' panel clearly shows what LODs a part is assigned to
The big disadvantage of this method is that it will be more work to upgrade old 2.79 models to this new technique. But hopefully I can develop a script to help with this.
Comments are welcome.
http://www.elvastower.com/forums/uploads/monthly_07_2019/post-8-0-91799600-1562939345_thumb.jpg
Basically you create MAIN as a collection.
MAIN contains a sub collection for each LOD, in this case MAIN_0700 and MAIN_2000.
And these LOD collections contain all your parts.
You create parts and drag and drop them into whatever LOD you want. You can see in the example there is a BodyLOD1 in MAIN_0700 and a lower res BodyLOD2 in MAIN_2000.
Some of the advantages over our existing methods are:
+ easy to assign LODs by dragging parts around
+ easy to change distance level settings by editing LOD collection name, eg rename MAIN_0700 to MAIN_0500
+ good visibility of settings -all your LOD assignments show in the outline panel
+ you don’t need a separate ‘dlevel’ control panel, enable or disable LODs using the check boxes in the outliner
+ it will be easy to add support for multiple LOD controllers, ie the main body has lods at 700 and 2000, but the wheels could have lods at 100, 200 and 500.
+ a part can be assigned to more than one LOD
+ integrates well with Blender rendering - you can select what LOD appears in your render
+ it uses standard Blender features - there's no hidden properties
+ the objects 'Collection' panel clearly shows what LODs a part is assigned to
The big disadvantage of this method is that it will be more work to upgrade old 2.79 models to this new technique. But hopefully I can develop a script to help with this.
Comments are welcome.
#13
Posted 21 July 2019 - 09:39 AM
Update - the MSTS exporter for Blender 2.8 is complete and out with a couple of volunteers for final testing. It should be released here soon.
#14
Posted 24 July 2019 - 08:22 AM
I just wanted to say "Thank you".
Blender 2.8 changes a lot of things... but it does reduce the learning cliff you encounter when getting started since it now has many new 'ease of use' updates.
Blender 2.8 changes a lot of things... but it does reduce the learning cliff you encounter when getting started since it now has many new 'ease of use' updates.
#15
Posted 24 July 2019 - 12:02 PM
pwillard, on 24 July 2019 - 08:22 AM, said:
I just wanted to say "Thank you".
Blender 2.8 changes a lot of things... but it does reduce the learning cliff you encounter when getting started since it now has many new 'ease of use' updates.
Blender 2.8 changes a lot of things... but it does reduce the learning cliff you encounter when getting started since it now has many new 'ease of use' updates.
Thanks Pete. There will be some pain during the transition, but it will be worth it to get on track with all the new features of Blender 2.8. I am planning to keep 2.79 around for my old files and just start anything new in 2.8.