[Request][$220][Paid] Mudrunner: increase LOD distance

[geraltOfRivia]

Game Name: Mudrunner
Game Engine: Indie game custom engine based on DX9
Game Version: The latest steam version (I can provide my modded version)
Options Required: Hardcoded Draw LOD switch distance
Steam Website:

Other Info:

I'm willing to pay for this request and welcome anyone to chat about it. And I want to increase the distance where the LOD switch happens. And it's hardcoded in game's exe file. Pls contact me on discord using geralt#5147 if you're interested.

For the request itself, I can provide details as follows: for ingame objects, such as trees, brushes, stones, and logs, there're 2 LOD versions of them. 1 is a simple billboard, and 1 is a fully detailed version.

As far as I know, there're 2 types of LOD switching in the game. First one, if you drive the car along the road, the objects alongside the road will switch to a detailed version based on their distance to the camera, about < 32 ingame meters. The second one, if u drive the car into the woods/forests, the LOD switching is based on the distance to the car, not the camera, about < 10 ingame meters.

You can refer to this video for the LOD switch example: [Link]
And this video for an example of 2 types of LOD switches: [Link]

As for the game itself, it's only 2 GB in total and I've already made a few mods for it, so I can provide more debugging or modding experience if that's helpful. Also, the game can run without steam, so I can provide the game file as well.

[happyTugs]

Sent you a P.M.

[happyTugs]

The request is still open, and to be more specific, the request is to modify which poly-count mesh of an object should be loaded depending on screen size.

This particular game uses the havok engine; so, happy hunting!

greetz,
happyTugs

[geraltOfRivia]

Currently, we can achieve 80% of the result but some bugs cannot be fixed. If anyone want to work on top of this, I'm always welcome for a chat!

[geraltOfRivia]

Currently, the background rendering info of the engine was supposedly figured out by another user, if anyone wants to take a look and contribute on top of this or provide any advice on the next step, you are welcome:

when a game is loaded, the game checks for the car/co-ords, and do some 3d math against the position set for an object nearby (like grass for example), the texture is copied to memory for some time, during this time if the game finds that that object is not used or visible on the current scene, this copy is then deleted and reinitialized (trying to prevent mem leaks), and since the range is short it starts by clearing those behind (where you normally can't see), later if it reaches to the close by objects, if an object's own view range goes out of the car/cam math, it gets replaced, doesn't matter which texture will be shown, it will just reload whatever is viewed, and in normal cases, they hide that by the white fade effect.

So this means simply bypassing the object visibility flag, making anything that is loaded in memory be shown on the screen is not perfect because it will introduce object flickering/popping in because in the background the loading and reloading are constantly happening.

Or the other approach, disables object refreshing, while it helped mitigate the object flickering/popping in issue, it also led to blocking the loading of other objects like rocks and some terrain things where the game would need to load these mid-stages or starting another map while playing, this also has to lead to the appearance of empty textures since their respecting rendering got blocked

[geraltOfRivia]

Weekly update on this request:

- raised to $120

- Considering there're probably 2 types of LOD distance algorithms affecting objects alongside the road vs objects in the woods, probably there's some LOD config embedded in the map's .stg file, which is packed xml file according to the official modding guide

[geraltOfRivia]

Weekly Update:

- raised to $130

[geraltOfRivia]

Forgot to mention, now I already found a way to hide the low-detailed version of the LOD objects, so we just need to find a way to consistently show the high-detailed version LOD objects all the time, then the issue is resolved. So this can be a second-thinking approach.

[geraltOfRivia]

Weekly Update:

- raised to $150

[geraltOfRivia]

Weekly Update:

- raised to $170

[geraltOfRivia]

Weekly Update:

- raised to $190

[geraltOfRivia]

Weekly Update:

- Raised to $200

[geraltOfRivia]

Weekly Update:

- Raised to $210

[geraltOfRivia]

Weekly Update:

- Raised to $220

[gir489]

Weekly Update:

- Raised to $220

I added you on Discord, but you have not accepted my request.