Development Blog

Could something like this fade effect be used on model view ranges too? It could be nice to have especially for the far and medium view range settings.

That would definitely work.

You could create a billboard studio tool that takes pictures at all the right angles. Seems like the bill boards would solve some of the lod needs

I am now able to accurately generate billboards that blend perfectly with the 3D model from any angle. However, it it tricky to make a smooth transition between the different views. I tried rendering 26 different angles for every possible angle with a resolution of 45 degrees, but it needs more work.

Josh, have a look ar this. I used it some years ago and it did exactly what you need. Models are prerendered as all around texture atlas on load. Works well with animated characters etc. Unfortunately it came along too late in the products life cycle and therefore got very little exposure. But there are some demos you can download and have a look at how they did the billboarding. http://www.thegamecreators.com/?m=view_product&id=2293

That's impressive work, this could be used to render buildings or big structures in the far distance without having us to manually generate billboards as we would have checked some "Make billlboard" box.

 

Some distance parameter could be needed however to choose the distance of billboard if they are big or small objetcs ?