Good LOD bike

[Fionalein]

hello, Forum folks

I'm counting your collective swarm knowledge to help me. I am still looking for a bike with good enough LOD to stay a bike at full draw distance (usually they loose tires long before at default LOD weight settings). I'm OK when they turn octagons at LOD level 4  but at least retain the tires. Come on, car designers, even plane designers manage to do it. Why are bikes only fully visible if the are close enough to lick them? There must be at least one decent bike designer out there, right? I would be happy if you could point some out to me, if not I'll stay happily with my LOD-stable bicycle =^.^= .

Thanks in advance, Fio

Edited March 30, 2018 by Fionalein

[mikka Luik]

=^^= bicycles are good but define good looking. As always this is SL - make your own. Current is an Indian as working up to make a NorVin..... real bike.

[Fionalein]

"good looking" as in not falling apart into a bunch of triangles at LOD level 3 at default LOD weight. I would prefer a racing bike but I will gladly consider anything from a WWII military one, to an offroad, a chopper or even one of those superboring traveller's road bikes.

Edited March 30, 2018 by Fionalein

[angeoco]

 Here is my bike seen from 50 metres away and magnified:

No LOD issues there I think. Here it is: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/GD-MOTORS-HD-bicycle-1S/11333627

I haven't used it for a while since I don't currently have road access, but I remember it being very good and realistic.

Edited March 30, 2018 by angeoco

[angeoco]

.

 

Edited March 30, 2018 by angeoco

[Fionalein]

I see, another good LOD bicycle, ... I was actually looking for a motorized bike, but as your bike and mine clearly demonstrate: it can be done. That company also seems to have motorbikes, I'll take look at those, thank you a lot.

Edited March 30, 2018 by Fionalein

[Chic Aeon]

{what next} makes motorized bikes (sort of moped style and some with sidecars) with good LODs. I have them rezzed at LEA6 partially because they hold there LODs well and partially because they are just PRETTY. They also work well. 

 

You can see them here: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA6/56/57/1002 

I keep my LOD setting at 2 so I suspect they would be pretty much across the whole sim at 4 :D. 

Edited March 30, 2018 by Chic Aeon

[Fionalein]

4 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

I keep my LOD setting at 2 so I suspect they would be pretty much across the whole sim at 4 :D. 

hehe, my vanity forbids me to use items that don't work at LOD factor 1.5, because half of SL runs on old computers... what is the use of showing off your vehicles, if they fall apart for those who watch you?

Thank you Chic and angeoco, found some nice onws in both stores now (I was short of giving up and really was considering rebuilding one with prim tires before I got the idea to post here)

PS: I love the lone aley bug in your LEA place, nice and subtle way to quote her =^.^=

Edited March 30, 2018 by Fionalein

[animats]

I know. I just built a bike on a bike frame. Looks great at high LOD; at 20m, the wheels disappear.

There are a lot of vehicles like this, because making 3D models of vehicles is a popular hobby, and you can download the models for SL use. But that doesn't get you the lower LOD models SL needs. Using "decimate" makes things worse.

We need an automatic impostor generator. Failing that, what's the best way to get the pictures needed for an impostor? 

What you'd like for a vehicle are four images - left, right, front, and rear. Preferably orthographic projections (infinite distance) but failing that, from far away. The images should have no background, which probably means taking them against a green screen and removing the green. Then you create two crossed vertical planes through the center of the vehicle and put the images on them, aligning them with the vehicle. Set them so they show only at low-LOD; the planes are invisible at high-LOD. Now your vehicle looks reasonably decent at distance.

For a car, it's probably better to wrap a rectangular solid around the car and put textures on the faces.

It's too bad that you can't add such impostors to existing mesh objects. Even if you have mod perms, you don't get to replace the LOD models. If you could replace them for existing objects, it would be worth automating this process. But you have to go back to the Blender or Maya model to do anything.

This could be a feature in the Firestorm mesh uploader. Firestorm can already preview a mesh. OpenGL supports an orthogonal camera. The upload process is where the LOD models are nailed in. So most of the pieces are already there.

(No, I'm not going to do it; I'm tied up on region crossings. Somebody with a big store full of furniture should do this. For them, it would pay.)

[Fionalein]

It looks it is always just the wheels, (well with cars it can be doors too, abnd bikes somtimes suffer from dissapearing forks) I'd say to hell with it and use high LI wheels instead. If the bike increases by 10LI to 15LI and keeps looking great that is a price I'd readily pay as a customer.

Edited March 30, 2018 by Fionalein