A question about "cardboard cutout" models

[Psiphoon]

Would it be possible to replace the mid to long range lod models with cardboard cutout sprites permanently facing the camera doom and wolfenstein style? And most importantly if we can use models like that, how much bigger could lag-less battles potentially get? I'm not expecting this technique to be as effective as it is in total war games which are built entirely around this strategy, but mods doing this would surely give (playable) battle sizes substantial boost.

 

[sergeant113]

Isn't it already the case now?

 

[Berserker Pride]

No the current LOD models are just increasingly simplistic and blocky versions of the normal ones.

The term for a 2d image that perpetually faces the player is a billboard.  It is used in some sprites but I can't think of a way to make that affect apply to lod armors.

 

[Psiphoon]

Alright then, how about pushing those super blocky mode LOD models way forward (close enough to easily notice but distant enough to ignore)- it there a global setting for that?

 

[Berserker Pride]

When the lod's come into play is determined by one of your quality settings.

That or replace lod1 and 2 with 2 and 3 instead(by removing lod 1 from the brf files and renaming the three remaining ones to fill the gap.)

 

[Psiphoon]

Done- I've renamed every lod1 to lod1old and shifted the others down to fill the gap, increasing performance by quite a bit (judging by the sudden abscence of freezes in 200v200 custom battles). And you know what? I still can't tell by looking if the game is using lods or not unless I press my face right up to the screen on 1920 by 1080 resolution. I might shift them a stage further if it didn't take so damn long doing it this way.

 

[Berserker Pride]

Nice!  Great for those big battles.  Must have taken a while to rename all the lod files.