Quad LOD

One unpopular but necessary area of 3d asset development is the creation of mesh LODs.
Due to the custom normals style direction for Alien: Isolation (see Normal Align Tool post ) the usual 3rd party / 3ds Max inbuilt LOD auto-generation tools weren't up to generating acceptable LODs - especially on the hard surface meshes.
However, the familiar custom normals used across the Alien: Isolation 3d asset meshes created a window of opportunity to create a tool specifically focused on creating cleaner LODs using this extra available information.
I have always enjoyed the challenge of resolving complex problems like this and really enjoyed the challenge of creating a tool to creating better results compared to the 3rd party alternatives at the time.
Quad LOD first identified where normals had be altered on a mesh. This then gave a indication of where the chamfer geometry existed on the mesh. As this geometry served as detailed information the player would only really appreciate and see up close the tool would remove these chamfers and switch them out for a hard edge.
The second pass was for Quad LOD to identify edge loops which defined a subtle curved surface. Once it had identifed these it would then remove every other edge loop across the surfaces to effectively reduce the geometry whilst maintaining the overall silhouette and form.
Overall Quad LOD was able to generate clean resulting LODs which weren't dissimilar to what an artist would create. This gave the extra advantage of offering further manual edits to the LOD meshes if required.