Let’s say I’m making a 3D model for my game. I typically create the thing at full in-game resolution, then I model/UV map from scratch each subsequent LOD for that asset.
This means when I create a brick factory for my game (For example), I have to model and texture it (from scratch) about 3 or 4 times.
Is there a better way? I can’t think of one, but in 2013, this seems needlessly tedious.
Multires modifier in 3DS Max.
Blender’s decimate modifier is pretty good.
It reduces the polycount to your liking without breaking the UV’s.
decimate loses the texture uvs…none of my textures work if I use decimate.
Old blender 2.49b has a “polygon reducer” script which works well keeping the texture but lost the animations for me.
The only one that keeps the texture uvs and the animations that was super simple is unwrap3d pro for $60
You don’t need to use the old polygon reducer script.
With Blender 2.65 they introduced a better decimate modifier that keeps your UV’s. Look here
Thank you for the input, guys. This is kind of what I thought. It felt like a silly question, but I had to ask it, just in case!
I use Blender and I like the decimate tool. Though I dislike the lack of ability to choose which vertices get merged or not, it’s still likely the closest thing to a solution for me. I just hate (for example) when all the doors and windows in the building I modelled get disfigured or partially capped over.
I used to use 3DSMax(I had been pirating it since version 2.5, back in 8th grade!) and it’s still my preferred software, but I want to try to work with legit tools these days. Once you get past the RIDICULOUSLY UNINTUITIVE interface, Blender is actually very good software, and it allows me to get things done just as well as I could in Max.
The decimate modifier has the ability to choose vertex groups. You just have to define a vertex group with the desired vertices and tell the decimate modifier to use that. Works fine in most cases.