Scene isolation for LOD visualization and speed while editing.

JD_Mortal

As the camera has a "focal point" indicator, I would love to have the ground-plane indicate the LOD-zones, with the ability to adjust them.

Settings for the editor LOD being unique to the scene-render LOD, by isolation of the controls bound to "A camera", for the render, and bound to "General settings" for the viewports. Optionally, having the ability to "Isolate scenery to current LOD". So everything beyond the LOD at our working location is just hidden, not the scenery LOD which we are obviously editing.

Okay, don't call it LOD for the viewport, call it draw-distance, since that isn't actually used here. (Well it is, the grid disappears, but not the objects beyond the grid. This should turn the grid into adjustable levels, without disturbing the grid-scale. White for the current LOD zone, medium grey for the middle LOD zone, and near-black for the far LOD zone, if we had three viewport LOD's setup. Objects beyond those points would not draw while editing, if we isolate to the central work area, which is the area close to what we are looking at, not just under our camera-view. (Half the intersect of the camera-angle to the floor, up to a limit-distance? Or just the center of the "focal point" of the camera, for an actual camera.)

When selecting an actual "camera", in the viewport (not the camera-view viewport only), we should be able to see the LOD models as they would appear in the render, as we get closer, they remain LOD detailed to the selected camera, not the viewport LOD adjustment. That would just determine which models we see on the screen, not the LOD level of the model seen on the screen.

I hope some of that makes sense... (I believe 3DSmax does the LOD thing in the view-port, and this might too... But not the camera-view thing, which would let us see if we need to adjust the LOD levels for that camera, for more or less detail, for faster renders or memory savings with renders. As opposed to viewport LOD drawing which is intended for editing-speed. Here, with the ability to HIDE, without having to keep selecting each individual item and "hide them", would be a big time-saver, especially for the live-IRay view.)

Oh, and one more thing... With the LOD stuff... Some Scene-Calculator or estimation of "Memory size required", would be nice to know, in advance... (Obviously not the same for every camera, and still just a quick evaluation estimate of the sceen, with the LOD accounted-for, and hidden objects from rendering, not counted in the estimate.)