The Finished Product

I’m not going to lie, I’m kind of sad that this project is over. I had so much fun making this tool and it was so rewarding to see it work as intended, nothing quite compares to that feeling. Sure shaders are fun and all, but I really enjoyed the process of troubleshooting my code for ages and then finally realising what’s wrong with it. I feel like I’ve learned so much during this project, from python syntax to how to use an API and make a UI for a tool in Unreal Engine 4.

Anyway, enough talk, let’s get into how to actually use the LOD Validating Tool.

Demo

The Step by Step Guide

The Output Log

The LOD Validating Tool uses UE4’s built in Output Log to display data to its user. Opening it should be as easy as navigating to Window>Developer Tools>Output Log. Make sure you right click>Clear Log before you run the tool, in order to see its output more clearly.

Opening the UI

First of all, make sure your project has the Python Editor Script Plugin and Editor Scripting Utilities plugin enabled. As for the project that I shipped it with for university, it already has those two set up. The tool is located in the Scripts folder (within the Shader Museum project), and it is named WBP_LODtool. To run it, you need to right click it and select the first option at the top, Run Editor Utility Widget. This will then open this UI.

Using the Tool

In order to run the LOD Validating Tool and get an output, you first need to select a Static Mesh in the content browser. With it selected, you can then press any buttons on the tool’s UI and it should output all the information about the mesh in the Output Log.

Okay but what do the buttons do?

I named each button so that what pressing it does is self explanatory, but just to be sure I’ll document that on here as well.

Asset Operations:

• Get Mesh Name will output the name of the mesh(es) you selected in the content browser
• Get Bounding Diameter will give you the diameter of the bounding sphere of the mesh(es)

  LOD Operations:

• Get Number of LODs shows the number of LODs currently present on the mesh(es)
• Get Number of Materials gives you the number of materials on the mesh(es)
• Get Number of Triangles for each LOD outputs the LOD indexes and the number of triangles they have
• Get LOD Screen Sizes will give you the screen sizes of the LODs on the mesh(es)
• Get LOD Vertex Density outputs the vertex density for each LOD on the mesh(es), calculated by dividing the number of vertices by the bounding diameter of the LOD
• Get Number of LOD UV Channels shows the number of UV channels present on each LOD of the mesh(es)
• Get Vertex Colours outputs True/False depending on whether the LOD has Vertex Colours or not
• Create Excel Report will gather all the data from above and export it as a .csv file in the same directory as the .uproject file
• Remove LODs removes all the LODs present on the mesh(es)

That’s about it! I tried to make the tool easy to use by providing a simple and intuitive UI. Throughout the next week, I will ask people if they want to try it out in their projects and see how easy it is for them to figure out the functionality, and based on that I might tweak the UI.

Thank you for reading!