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#12997
LOD Mixer for PES5 December 5,2005
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Version 1.0.
1 INTRODUCTION TO THE CONCEPT.
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This is by no means a formal definition of Level-of-Detail (LOD) idea, but
merely a short introduction to the concept, which will hopefully be helpful
in understanding what the LOD Mixer program does, and how to use it.
Typically (and PES5 is no exception), a rendering engine in 3D games is
designed to take advantage of the fact that objects that look small need
simpler models than objects that look big. A close-up view of a car may
require thousands of polygons to look convincing, but may only need a few
hundred when the distance between it and the camera is big and the amount
of pixels it occupies on the screen is small. By using simpler models for
far-away objects, the game engine saves GPU cycles that could be used for
creating additional visual effects, or just to maintaining a smooth frame
rate. Level-Of-Detail algorithm is the logic that decides when to use
a particular model for a particular object.
For the task of rendering players and goalkeepers, PES5 uses 5 different
levels of detail, which are dynamically switched depending on a set of
factors: distance from camera to player, playing mode, active player, etc.
#1: Very high-detail models, big (512x256) textures",
#2: High-detail models, medium (256x128) textures",
#3: Medium-detail models, medium (256x128) textures",
#4: Low-detail models, small (128x64) textures",
#5: Very low-detail models, small (128x64) textures",
LOD #1 is used for cut-scenes and more in replays than in actual game. It's
the only one that uses best quality kit textures - 512x256. LOD #2 and #3
are typically used for many cameras, including "Normal Long" and "Wide".
LOD #4 - on "Wide" and "Bird's Eye", and LOD #5 i was only able to see
with "Bird's-Eye" cameras.
To illustrate the concept, consider this scenario:
The camera is really close to the player, so the game engine selects LOD #1
to show the very well detailed model of the player with nice-looking textures
As the player moves away from the camera, at some point the game engine
decides that the very high level of detail is not needed anymore, and it
should be switched to next one - LOD #2, since the camera is now
far enough and the user won't notice the difference. Here's where the problem
occurs with PES5 (and PES4 for that matter): we actually DO see the
difference, because KONAMI implemented a very aggressive LOD algorithm and it
switches to lower-detail models way too early, and that's why we see annoying
artifacts, as player balding and low-quality kit textures. I can only guess
why they did it, and i think it's because the lowest denominator system
- PS2 - couldn't sustain the smooth frame rate with a more concervative
LOD switching algorithm.
2. HOW TO USE THE PROGRAM
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LOD Mixer will automatically find your PES5 installation and display
the full pathname of the PES5.exe file. If you're running the program the
very first time, you'll see the default LOD configuration: 1,2,3,4,5.
This means that the LOD algorithm will use #1-models for LOD #1, #2-models
for LOD #2, and so on. Change that configuration by selecting different
items in drop-down boxes, press "Save" button, and that's it. You can
now close the LOD Mixer and start the game.
The idea of changing the default setup, is to force the game engine to
use higher-detail models for the cases when it used simpler ones, and vice
versa. For example, you can force it to use best-detail models for LOD #1,2,3
and keeping the defaults for LOD#4 and 5.
This is the configuration for such example: 1,1,1,4,5.
Or you can choose 5,5,5,5,5 which will result in really simplified models
used for all cases. (This extreme config looks kinda funny :-), if for
instance your PC is not powerful and you want to sacrifice some visual
quality for smooth frame rate. Typically though, if you have a good PC, you'd
want to use something like 1,1,2,2,3.
Now, for all of you, who have honestly read the introduction section and has
difficulty understanding the concept, don't be discouraged. LOD Mixer is a
very simple program: you can use in a purely "black-box" experimental way:
select a random configuration, press "Save" button, close the LOD Mixer,
start the game and see how your changes affect the display. It's pretty safe,
because you can always press "Defaults" button to restore the original
configuration, then press "Save" and you're back to square one.
(Of course, backing up PES5.exe - just in case - is not a bad idea either ;-)
You can try 1,1,1,1,1, but this seems to be an overkill, because LOD #4 and
LOD #5 don't really need that sort of precision, and the rendering logic
unnecessarily takes the CPU(GPU) cycles, without adding anything visually
in those situations.
I found the following configuration pretty good: 1,1,2,2,3
(Which means that the five drop-downs look like this:
LOD #1 - #1: Very high-detail models, big (512x256) textures",
LOD #2 - #1: Very high-detail models, big (512x256) textures",
LOD #3 - #2: High-detail models, medium (256x128) textures",
LOD #4 - #2: High-detail models, medium (256x128) textures",
LOD #5 - #3: Medium-detail models, medium (256x128) textures",
Numbers on shorts are always there, no more "fake" baldness, captain
armbands always visible, cut-scenes (pre-match photos and etc.) have
the highest quality. On my PC, i didn't experience any slowdown with this
configuration, but you'll have to try it on yours to see how it deals with
the task of rendering more polygons.
In a way this is a fun experiment, which gives you an opportunity to
affect the game engine.
3. CREDITS
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LOD algorithm analysis and programming by Juce.