Welcome to LODinize

LODinize creates level-of-detail (LOD) versions of skinned, animated characters. It measures how each LOD deviates from the original while the character moves, lets you steer where triangles are spent, repairs texture gaps that simplification opens up, and exports the result for your game engine.

How this help is organised

There is rarely one right way to build a good LOD set — characters, animations and target platforms differ. This help therefore separates what the tools are from ways of using them:

The ideas behind LODinize

• Animation matters. A LOD that looks fine in the bind pose can break at a knee, shoulder or hip in an extreme pose. LODinize evaluates every frame of the animations you load and shows the deviation over time.
• Two measures of error. Surface error is how far the LOD surface moves away from the original; Silhouette error is how much the character's outline changes — usually what players notice first.
• You stay in control. Masks tell the simplifier what to protect, what matters more, and what can be removed altogether (for example geometry that is never visible).
• Textures follow. Simplified triangles can sample texture areas the original never used; the Atlas Editor shows those areas and fills them.