What is LOD ?

You have probably come across the word ” LOD ” in the feature section of our cars pages. LOD stands for ” Level of Details ” and it means that the same 3D model in a video game can have multiple versions of itself.

‘Level of detail’ Levels usually start with Level 0 having the highest quality with the most polygons and can go to L4 which is basically a cube.

Here is a comparison of a 3d model with the Level of details : 0, 2, and 5 :

Why is LOD important ?

Now you might ask why do we need to have a version of a model, so poor in quality. In video games, when you move away from an object, having a lower quality version of it, helps at preserving your resources. Since you are far away from that object, you wont recognize the details of it anymore and having a highly detailed version of it will waste your resources, causing lower fps (frame per second).

Now in GTA, there are a lot of objects in your line of sight and most importantly a lot of cars. Having different levels of details makes the game use your hardware resources efficiently. At Level 1 you usually lose interior, and an unnoticeable amount of exterior details. As you increase your distance from the car, the level of details increases and the amount of polygons decreases.

We’ve recently decided to add LODs to our mods ( For instance, the Alfa Romeo ) specially daily drivers since some of you prefer to use them as ‘Replaces’ and it’s important to have LODs for cars that are going to roam around the city.
I hope this short article has helped you understand the importance of Level of Detail. Now you’ll know why some mods can slow down your performance or even worse crash your game. It is crucial to have LODs.

If you are a mod developer and you want to know more about LOD and how to implement it in your mods efficiently, you can read more about them in this article.