LODMOD

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What is it?

LODMOD is a simple but effective addon for Blender that automates the task of creating LODs for your meshes utilising the Decimate modifier. Every modern 3D game uses LOD (level of detail) meshes and the task of creating them is typically tedious and boring.

Why was it made?

This addon was born out of my own frustration with having to make LOD meshes manually by simply collapsing down and counting verts on meshes over and over again. I needed a way to create the lods for multiple objects fast and tweak afterwards. I'm sure every artist in the games industry shares this frustration at some point in their career.

How does it work?

The meat of this addon is pretty simple. For all selected objects, when you click the "create LOD's" button, it will;

Duplicate the object (by however many LODs you want), rename it with the suffix "_LODx", add a decimate modifier set to collapse with the preset ratio (calculated based on what you set as the ratio and the number of LODs you chose).

What are the options?

The extra options in the menu are self explanatory but the options are listed below;

Number of LODs: set how many LODs you wish to make for each selected object

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Decimation ratio: Set that ratio from 0 to 1 how much you want to reduce each LOD by. By default this is 0.5 so each lod will half in vert count from the previous

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Lineup Offset: Will offset each LOD by the amount you set, letting you see a lineup of the lods when you hit create. This will allow you to examine the LODs and tweak your values before recreating

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Apply Modifiers: Will ensure the LODs decimate modifiers are applied (destructive workflow) so you don't have to do it one by one

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Add LOD0 suffix: when turned off, the original mesh remains named the same. When turned on, the original mesh will be given the suffix LOD0. Regardless, all lods start with _LOD1 either way

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Make Collections: This will neatly pack the original meshes into a collection with their respective LODs. Extremely handy if you use this addon on lots of objects all at once as it keeps the outliner tidy and keeps the created LODs with their original object