Edit > Level of Detail

Lets you associate multiple versions of some geometry to be replaced based on distance in a game engine. This lets you produce a high-quality version of a model for up-close and a low-quality version for far-away, with multiple versions in between.

Note

Level of Detail doesn’t handle instances; instanced geometry will not be displayed consistently if it is added into a Level of Detail. Only use uninstanced geometry when creating levels of detail.
Edit > Ungroup should not be used with Level of Detail; the LOD threshold information will not be reset properly on Undo. UseEdit > Level of Detail > Ungroup to properly ungroup an lodGroup node.

Related topics

Level of Detail group node

Add and edit levels

To add a new level

Create a new object to add to the level of detail group.
Do one of the following:
- In the Hypergraph, use to drag the new object onto the lodGroup node.
- In the Outliner, use the middle mouse button to drag the new object onto the group.
The new object is added to the bottom of the lodGroup’s hierarchy.

Tip
You can also re-order a group by selecting Edit > Level of Detail > Ungroup. Re-order the objects and create a new group.

Preview more than one object at the same time

You can preview different objects at the same time to compare them.

To view more than one object

In the Hypergraph, select the level of detail group node.
The node’s attributes are displayed in the Channel Box. Each Display Level has three possible settings: uselod, show, and hide.
Use the left mouse button to click one of the Display Level’s uselod text. A drop-down menu with the three options is displayed.
Select one of the options. You can show or hide any combination of objects.
Tip
Reset the Display Levels to uselod to return to the regular level of detail behavior.

Notes about orthographic cameras and level of detail

Level of Detail displays one child of a level of detail group, depending on the group’s distance to a camera. For perspective cameras, this means measuring the distance between the camera position to the center of the bounding box of the group.

For orthographic cameras, the distance is measured differently. This is because zooming, panning, and dollying in an orthographic view does not change the camera position, but instead changes the camera’s orthographic width. So the distance is measured as:

distance = (default camera distance) * (camera’s orthographic width)/(default orthographic width)

Substituting Maya’s default values in this equation results in the following:

distance = 3.333 * (camera’s orthographic width)