Hello George,
I need some help with your lod booster. I use the code for a forest. From time to time, the different lod-models are not replaeced correctly. Sometimes when I get near to the model (under the lod-limit) there has to be the "normal" model without lod, but there isn't. But it sometimes it works... Do I have to change the code to use it with a lot of models?


here is the code. My models names are "tan_0.mdl" "tan_2.mdl" "tan_3.mdl"
Code:

---

 
define lod_dist_1, skill1;
define lod_dist_2, skill2;

string entname_str[30];
string templod_str[30];

// uses lod_dist_1, lod_dist_2
action lod_booster
{
	var lod_step = 0;
	if (my.skill1 == 0 || my.skill2 == 0) // if the player forgets to set the lod steps in Wed
	{
		my.skill1 = 1000; // set the default lod steps
		my.skill2 = 3000;
	}
	

	my.material = mtl_vegetation;
		
										my.obj_amb_fac = 0.3;
						my.ambient = (-100+sun_angle.tilt*(my.obj_amb_fac*1))+(lightning/3);
	
	
	while (1)
	{
		str_for_entfile (entname_str, my); // get the file name of the entity
		str_cpy (templod_str, entname_str); // copy the name to templod_str
		str_clip (templod_str, str_len(entname_str) - 6); // get rid of the first part of the name
		str_trunc (templod_str, 5); // as well as of the last part of the name
		str_cpy (templod_str, entname_str); // copy the name of the entity in templod_str again 
		str_clip (templod_str, str_len(entname_str) - 4); // we've got the extension name here (ex: .mdl)
		temp = vec_dist (my.x, camera.x); // measure the distance between the camera and the entity
		if (temp >= my.skill1) // the distance is bigger than the first lod step?
		{
			if (temp < my.skill2) // if it is smaller than the 2nd lod step, so we will use the 2nd model
			{	
				if (lod_step != 2) 
				{
					str_trunc (entname_str, 5);
					str_cat (entname_str, "2");
					str_cat (entname_str, templod_str);
					ent_morph(my, entname_str); 
				}
			}
			else // the distance is bigger than the 2nd lod step as well, so we will use the 3rd model
			{
				if (lod_step != 3)
				{
					lod_step = 3;
					str_trunc (entname_str, 5);
					str_cat (entname_str, "3");
					str_cat (entname_str, templod_str);
					ent_morph(my, entname_str); 
				}
			}
		}
		else // the entity is close to the camera, so we will use the 1st model
		{
			if (lod_step != 1)
			{
				lod_step = 1;
				str_trunc (entname_str, 5);
				str_cat (entname_str, "0");
				str_cat (entname_str, templod_str);
				ent_morph(my, entname_str); 
			}
		}
		// wait a random number of frames; this instruction splits the load over several frames, useful if we have many lod entities
		wait (3 + random(20)); 
	}
}

 

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If you have lots of trees you might encounter problems; the string that stores the name of the tree model might be used by several trees at the same time. You can define several arrays and assign an array for each tree automatically - this will fix the problem.
As a (better) alternative, you can use Acknex's built-in lod system.