Unreal Engine Octahedral Impostors and How to make LODs

Name: Unreal Engine Octahedral Impostors and How to make LODs
Rating: 3.9 (44 reviews)

Optimize assets in UE4 to generate LODs and create great LODs! Increase FPS of Unreal Engine with impostors LOD

Created byLuciano Júnior

Last updated 9/2024

English

English [Auto],

What you'll learn

How to create better LODs in UE4
How to create Octahedron Impostors for Unreal Engine
Optimize assets to gain more FPS in Unreal
Step by step guide about how to create LODs for your assets in Unreal Engine
Good habits and practices for creating and finishing a LOD with Impostor

Course content

4 sections • 52 lectures • 6h 4m total length

Trailer 14:54
Explore Unreal Engine octahedral impostors and practical techniques for creating level of detail to optimize rendering.
PREVIEW: Showing all imposters created in the course.10:14
Just the trailer 1 of impostors
PREVIEW: Showing LODs created in the course.4:54
trailer 2
Big thanks to Ryan Brucks for create the ImposterBaker7:18
links:
Ryan Brucks blog: https://www.shaderbits.com/blog/octahedral-impostors
Custom ImposterBaker: https://github.com/LucianoJacomeli/ImpostorBaker
Assets used in the course6:59
Paid assets:
Michael Gerard
https://www.artstation.com/unrealmike
https://www.udemy.com/course/ue4-create-natural-scene/
Modular Cliffs
https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/modular-cliffs
Brushify Urban Buildings Pack
https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/brushify-urban-buildings-pack
Free assets:
Kite Demo
https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/open-world-demo-collection
Koola's Snow Scene
https://store.speedtree.com/store/koolas-snow-example-project-ue4/
How create an Imposter or Billboard, or Octahedron Imposter.17:52
Learn to create and optimize octahedral impostors in Unreal Engine, using the imposter baker, material functions, and texture baking to render billboards with minimal geometry.

installing our ImposterBaker2:34
The link to download in on Resources
Console Command: "showflag.lod 0" to force LOD0 to be always displayed3:29
Command:
showflag.lod 0 to enable the best LOD of the StaticMesh
showflag.lod 1 to disable
KITE DEMO: Checking our first asset3:02
KITE DEMO: Imposter Map with Neutral Lighting4:24
Always use the map "NaturalScene1"
KITE DEMO: Add Material Function ImposterCaptureSwitch to MATERIALS6:37
Remember to use the RMB and type ImposterCaptureSwitch to find the node in material, and check Use Material Attributes on final node of Material.
KITE DEMO: Rendering our first Imposter2:13
Render your first impostor in the kite demo, part of Unreal Engine octahedral impostors course, troubleshoot materials, and improve far-distance visuals by adjusting roughness and specular on the impostor buffer.
KITE DEMO: Checking Buffer Visualization4:18
KITE DEMO: Important Settings for ImposterBaker7:41
KOOLA's: Using the parameters of ImposterBaker3:54
Learn how to use KOOLA's ImposterBaker parameters to optimize assets in Unreal Engine. See the capture workflow and material attributes setup for octahedral impostors and LODs.
KOOLA's: Imposter Types and Materials8:44
Koola's imposter types and materials teaches selecting octahedral imposters and optimizing materials, projections, and parallax with upper atmosphere settings for realistic LODs.
KITE DEMO: Baking imposters to others assets from KiteDemo9:32
KITE DEMO: Cliff Mesh3:30
Learn how to use Unreal Engine octahedral impostors to stand in for massive cliff meshes at far distances, preserving detail with few triangles and enabling efficient LODs.
KITE DEMO: Rocks5:35
Learn to generate octahedral impostors for rocks using a master material and material function, using Izumo assets and adjusting texture size and image counts for far-distance lod efficiency.
MODULAR CLIFFS: Modular Cliffs Assets map3:09
Discover modular cliffs assets to generate octahedral impostors and build LODs using a single material, a master material, and a material instance in a dynamic scene.
MODULAR CLIFFS: Baking more imposter11:33
Bake octahedral impostors to optimize distant LODs, align material functions, and test parallax, atmosphere, and photogrammetry effects across multiple assets and test scenes.
MODULAR CLIFFS: TIP bake imposter in the final level to see if worth create...7:29
BRUSHIFY URBAN: Understanding the assets and some meshes6:59
Discover how to create octahedral impostors for urban Unreal Engine scenes, bake imposters, and optimize with modular assets, blueprints, and level-of-detail techniques for distant buildings.
BRUSHIFY URBAN: add MF to Brushify Master Materials1:35
BRUSHIFY URBAN: Testing some settings in ImposterBaker and Materials9:58
Test ImposterBaker and materials settings in Unreal Engine to optimize octahedral impostors for distant LODs, examining parallax, metallic values, and simple offsets.
BRUSHIFY URBAN: Testing more assets from Brushify7:53
BRUSHIFY URBAN: Testing more imposters1:46
Master octahedral impostors in Unreal Engine 4 by creating and optimizing meshes, exporting static assets, and refining distance settings for improved impostor performance.
MICHAEL GERARD CS01: Course assets4:10
Paid assets:
Michael Gerard
https://www.artstation.com/unrealmike
https://www.udemy.com/course/ue4-create-natural-scene/
MICHAEL GERARD CS01: Add MF to Master Materials3:55
Paid assets:
Michael Gerard
https://www.artstation.com/unrealmike
https://www.udemy.com/course/ue4-create-natural-scene/
MICHAEL GERARD CS01: Baking our first Tree Imposter5:52
Paid assets:
Michael Gerard
https://www.artstation.com/unrealmike
https://www.udemy.com/course/ue4-create-natural-scene/
MICHAEL GERARD CS01: Baking more imposters14:10
Paid assets:
Michael Gerard
https://www.artstation.com/unrealmike
https://www.udemy.com/course/ue4-create-natural-scene/
MICHAEL GERARD CS01: Baking more Octahedron Imposter4:49
Paid assets:
Michael Gerard
https://www.artstation.com/unrealmike
https://www.udemy.com/course/ue4-create-natural-scene/
MICHAEL GERARD CS02: New course assets2:32
Paid assets:
Michael Gerard
https://www.artstation.com/unrealmike
https://www.udemy.com/course/ue4-create-natural-scene/
MICHAEL GERARD CS02: Assets in scene and add MF to Master Materials7:16
Paid assets:
Michael Gerard
https://www.artstation.com/unrealmike
https://www.udemy.com/course/ue4-create-natural-scene/
MICHAEL GERARD CS02: Baking more assets5:12
Paid assets:
Michael Gerard
https://www.artstation.com/unrealmike
https://www.udemy.com/course/ue4-create-natural-scene/

Commands to LOD freeze4:52
Lets know how to enable the console command and use the "showflag.lod 0" again.
The new command will be:
"r.forcelod 0" to show LOD0
"r.forcelod 1" to show LOD1
"r.forcelod 2" to show LOD2
"r.forcelod 3" to show LOD3
"r.forcelod 4" to show LOD4
"r.forcelod 5" to show LOD5
"r.forcelod 6" to show LOD6
Deleting previous LOD5:45
Master creating and comparing octahedral impostors by deleting previous LODs, preserving the best LOD 0, and validating seamless transitions to save resources and optimize performance.
Creating a new LOD10:34
Learn to create and optimize lods in Unreal Engine using automatic Élodie generation, adjust transitions by distance, and balance detail with performance on original meshes.
Adjusting LOD transition with ScreenSize for a seamless transition16:00
Learn how to adjust lod transitions using screen size to create seamless silhouette changes for octahedral impostors, balancing triangle counts, manual distance placement, and reduction settings.
Comparing LOD: "old vs new" and a new Console Command to force LOD transitions5:26
Compare old and new LODs for octahedral impostors, observe differences in mesh detail and leaves, and learn a console command to force LOD transitions using show flags.
Copy LOD settings to reduce time9:36
Copy LOD settings to quickly generate octahedral impostors in Unreal Engine by transferring reduction, distance, and body counts between meshes.
Automated LODS: Create LODs with a single click9:04
KOOLA's: Creating lods from scratch19:29
Learn KOOLA's method for creating lods from scratch in Unreal Engine, generate octahedral impostors, and adjust reduction settings and distances for seamless, performance-friendly transitions.

KOOLA's: How bake imposters from our last LOD8:00
In the record of video i've made a mistake, and i used the wrong command! Try to use the r.forcelod 5 to show our last lod.
KOOLA's: Always use Simple Offset Material to create our imposters.1:34
Apply KOOLA's simple offset material to create octahedral imposters, reducing triangles while preserving tree visuals, and explore parallax versions and atmosphere effects to optimize imposters.
MICHAEL GERARD CS02: Same method to bake the impostors from our last LOD number1:26
"r.forcelod 0" until 12 to force lod to use the lod number. To disable the command and back to normal LOD transition use "r.forcelod -1"
MICHAEL GERARD CS02: Testing our imposter with the LOD12:47
MICHAEL GERARD CS02: Creating a map to testing our final imposter7:50
Populate a map with impostors and real meshes, configure foliage density and daylighting, and ensure a seamless impostor transition through distance fields, shadows, and grayscale material tweaks.
Faking subsurface4:54
Learn to implement octahedral impostors to replace real meshes with LODs in Unreal Engine, while faking subsurface lighting, managing shadows, and achieving seamless transitions.
MICHAEL GERARD CS01: Testing our final imposter mesh9:51
Test the final imposter mesh by generating octahedral impostors, bake textures, create static assets and material instances, then export and import into the scene to optimize far-distance rendering.
MICHAEL GERARD CS01: Some settings in Illumination.13:39
Learn to create octahedral impostors and implement LODs in Unreal Engine, adjusting textures, materials, and illumination settings to achieve seamless transitions and optimized rendering.
MODULAR CLIFFS: Testing Cliff imposter7:16

Requirements

Unreal Engine 4.25 installed

Description

In this course, I will teach you how to optimize your StaticMesh from LOD0 to your last LOD in UNREAL ENGINE and stay as close to the original as possible without any strange transition. In the end I will show you how to generate Octahedral Impostors in UE4 and put in your last LOD, optimizing your assets as much as possible and gaining a lot of FPS performance in your Unreal Engine game.

The ImpostorBaker plugin created by Ryan Brucks will be used in a version of mine modified to accept Unreal Engine 4.22, 4.23, 4.24, 4.25, 4.26 & 4.27. An exclusive version is present in this course along with a new map to create our Impostors more easily and accurately.

We will practice to the maximum the creation of our Octahedral Impostors and show some important configurations and tips to make it as equal as possible.

The course is divided into several sections:

We will create the impostors for various assets of the Kite Demo, Brushify, Michael Gerard assets course, Koolala Snow Scene, Modular Cliff.
We will learn how to optimize LODs by creating from scratch, using only the tools of the Unreal Engine, tips on how to facilitate our work by reusing LODs settings for other assets, and comparing our lod with the old lod.
We will create our final impostor after several training sessions, and we will create it after creating our LODs and using our last lod to have a smooth transition between all the LODs from the densest mesh to the impostor.

If you are in UE5 that is not is my problem, this course not is for Unreal Engine 5. is like if this was a Windows 10 course and you are using Windows 11.

Who this course is for:

Unreal Engine users, Game Developers, Students

Unreal Engine Octahedral Impostors and How to make LODs

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Introdução6 lectures • 52min

HOW TO MAKE OCTAHEDRON IMPOSTERS29 lectures • 2hr 44min

HOW TO MAKE LODS8 lectures • 1hr 21min

CREATING THE FINAL IMPOSTERS9 lectures • 1hr 7min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: