Geometry Optimization In a Few Clicks | Unreal Engine 5

Learn how to optimize geometry in Unreal Engine 5 with just a few clicks using AUTOLOD feature!
In this video I will show you a quick tip how you can create an optimized version of a model while staying inside Unreal Engine. Works great if you need a good result quick for medium to background range.

[@unreal_archviz]

Hi guys! WOW! I wasn't expecting so many views so quickly. Thank you! ❤ I would love to hear from you, what topics would you like me to cover in the future? Any problems you have encountered or you want to do something but don't know how? Leave a comment below and I might make a video about it! 👇

[@oliverdive9759]

Thanks to the KZbin algorithm for putting an amazing person like you on my suggestion list❤. Keep going bro any tricks you will post will be popular if you put an attractive thumbnail like this one ✨👌

[@unreal_archviz]

@@oliverdive9759 Wow! Thank you very much for such kind words! ❤

[@thrilldawill2]

Unreal Community needs more of these quick tip videos. keep it up, this is great content and super useful!

[@unreal_archviz]

Thank you! Will do more of it!

[@luckyboy5nu]

You can definitely tell the difference between 1M Tris and 1,000 Tris at that close of distance, Jagged Edges and a difference in how shadows are received makes it obvious Still everyone should optimize their Geometry and you can easily get better results for close objects by lowering less to maybe 3000 Tris and more for long distance objects

[@crusenho]

We need this kind of video, quick, simple, and important information for development! Thank you for creating this video, I hope I can see more video like this from you again.

[@unreal_archviz]

Thank you!

[@VRDivision]

your channel will become an irreplaceable source of knowledge; keep it up mate!

[@unreal_archviz]

You have inspired me to give youtube a try, so hearing such enouraging words from you is crazy 😅 Thank you, mate!

[@danieldistinkt]

Quality little tip, the algo did its work and brought me to you, nice one mate

[@unreal_archviz]

Thank you! ❤

[@LocNgVIZ]

Great work!! Thanks for sharing bro!!

[@Helgrind44]

Pretty useful for asset packs and Megascans. I usually export to Blender, decimate then import back but this is much faster. Thank you!

[@TronikXR]

Great tip! Thanks brother!

[@nawhz6292]

Ty exactly what i needed. keep it up

[@jaxtherippah970]

thanks bro, amazing tip!

[@naufaldihilmi8507]

LOVE VIDEOS LIKE THIS! more video about optimization please. maybe fog or skeletal mesh optimization if there's any

[@unreal_archviz]

Thank you! I'll look into fog or skeletal mesh stuff. If you have any more topics you would want me to cover, let me know too!

[@smitteree]

I mean, yes, I can see it very clearly, there is quite some difference in detail. But then again, I pay a lot of attention to detail. But the low poly version has enough detail for most people.

[@unreal_archviz]

Exactly. There is definatelly a difference, but an average viewer will probably not notice it. My girlfriend made 2 guesses on the 5 rocks example and was wrong twice 😅 I wouldn't use AUTOLOD if you need a high quality optimized asset. But if you just need a quick result - its handy to have it right there in Unreal.

[@haggets_]

You gotta keep in mind that most people won't shove their face into models, and very small details are sometimes actually impossible for people to see because the camera simply doesn't allow them to get close enough.

[@CarTastic-fv6eo]

I would say 50k polys is more than enough for big assets in a FPS game when you look at it up close.

[@jadtaha8334]

Great fun video bro 💪

[@solarstoned]

thank you very muchly ❤‍🔥

[@SuperLordee]

Thank you!

[@oopphh._.]

You are underrated as f-k, not gonna lie keep it up!

[@unreal_archviz]

This is very encouraging, thank you!

[@cgimadesimple]

really good! ❤

[@leotsui1231]

great tip, thanks. How do you make the modelling icons *(UV, deform, model..) in one column?

[@Radwalls]

Hi Unreal ArchWizard!!! I love this tip. How would you go about using this with something like the city sample assets in the marketplace? They are all in blueprints made up of many different static meshes. Pull each section out and replace it with a AUTOLOD'd version?

[@mrowkakek]

cool tip

[@44punk]

So any way, I started subscribin’.

[@Athurito]

nice video hope we see more optimization videos maybe foliage ?

[@unreal_archviz]

Thank you! I added it to my list of topics to cover!

[@readylearnmore]

This works for simple geometry, but not for complex ones such as bushes and trees.

[@CrisisDispenser]

If it’s a nanite mesh, what’s the point? Nanite’s rendering complexity is proportional to pixel count, not poly count. It wouldn’t make a difference.

[@unreal_archviz]

You can still see the difference in the video when I switched on nanite triangle view. I personally use autolod when I need the same assets for the close ups and for the background. There is no reason for the background assets to use 1 million polygons each, even if its nanite. Besides there are cases where you cant use nanite, not all devices support it, DX11 or consoles (eg switch) dont.

[@dobrx6199]

It also reduces the disk size by a lot too

Disk size, and I guess memory usage would both be greatly improved I would assume.

[@Cazaq]

Memory usage goes up. You are adding an extra 2K texture.

[@nickwold]

Nanite itself is expensive to run, not supported on mobile, VR, etc. On a lot of projects you won’t be able to use it. Also getting rid of the high poly assets saves disk space. In my experience using optimized assets with LODs is way cheaper than using Nanite. Nanite is good for next-gen systems and quickly designing incredibly detailed scenes, but not for games where maximum optimization is required

[@Sweenus987]

Good tip but if you're using Nanite, don't you get the same result with changing the "Keep Triangle Percent" that you can see on the right in the mesh editor window at 1:13 ? You have it set to 100%, change it to 0.1% and compare the result. The information on the top left will adjust too, like the disk usage and such.

[@unreal_archviz]

Hey Sweenus. I have set Triangle percent to 0.5% (to come to 5k triangles) and the size is 0.26 MB (0.1 nanite) vs 0.13 MB (0.06 nanite) from autolod. see screenshot below. The mesh looks pretty good too. The downside is that I have to go into every texture and lower its resolution too, while autolod bakes it for me automatically. Also the original uasset is still there. (which in my case is 67MB and 750 MB from 8K textures). I would prefer the ability to just delete the original asset and save drive space. In the end I work on projects for VR on Meta Quest and cant use nanite, so Im stuck to autolod for now 😆 But you are right! Its a viable option too! Good to know! Thank you! drive.google.com/file/d/1T_PvP-yzERU8kn3cHXWpf42-wGxP67tg/view?usp=sharing

[@amigoface]

just

[@motconwibusimpnaoo2711]

Is that "chào" 😲 at the end of video😮😮

[@unreal_archviz]

Yes 😀

[@QUANTPAPA]

its clearly noticeble

[@heckensteiner4713]

You sir are irreprace... irrepray... irreplacible!

[@unreal_archviz]

Haha. 😂 Thank you !❤

[@Kakker71]

Now, Idon´t know sh*t about unreal engine other than it´s a graphics engine and looks great. But is it possible to change the triangle count realtime during live run, so that the triangle count can change according to distance to camera?

[@unreal_archviz]

Yes, thats exactly what games do. Usually, the meshes change between like 5 different Levels of Details (LODs). But in Unreal there is now Nanite which does that automatically and saves a bunch of time for developers.

[@Kakker71]

@@unreal_archviz So cool. I look forward to play games with these kind of graphics. I'm old enough that my first computer was a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K with really shitty graphics. So I really enjoy the development. Even then my friends and I was talking about how realistic the graphics looked when the Amiga came.... 😀

[@MustafaBerkeGureltol]

I mean I could tell

[@Cazaq]

This is simply moving size on disk to size in memory, by adding an extra 2k texture to the streaming pool. If you are using Nanite, this is simply a bad idea, as Nanite compression is fantastic.

[@unreal_archviz]

If you keep both of the models, yes. But it you delete the original and keep the new one - you are saving memory. Also you cant always use nanite. I do many VR projects and I cant use it there. Its still useful to know that Autolod is right there.

[@Cham-]

LODs.

[@swrcPATCH]

Honestly, I was barely able to spot the difference (when you only showed 2, when you showed 5 it was not possible due to the video), its the blacks and an educated experienced unreal user will tell the difference, but thats you going from 1 000 000 down to 5 000, like, if you go down to 20K which is still relatively low, I do not think I'll be still able to spot the difference anymore...

[@darkestdaysvideogame]

Are you Serbian?

[@unreal_archviz]

You are not the first person to think I'm Serbian. But close, I'm Ukranian. I used to hang out with Serbians at the Uni. You could tell I wasn't from there because I was the shortest in the group 😅

[@darkestdaysvideogame]

@@unreal_archviz A hahaha, yeah guessed cause of English accent, Serbs sound the same speaking it, and I feel you, I'm only around 180 which is short for a Serb

[@ipadize]

Clickbait! It doesnt have 1.000.000 triangles but only 999.996! :P

[@unreal_archviz]

You caught me... 😅

[@MARK2580]

Then they wonder why games have such poor optimization, because idiots make models of stones with 1 million polygons. There should be 1 million polygons for the entire level, not per stone.

[@EricBarthDev]

Decimation has been around for decades. Anyone could add the feature to any engine.. it's been in many engines. ..oh, sorry, I am probably ruining your exploring fun.. my bad. I'll shut up.

[@unreal_archviz]

Hey there! No worries at all, I appreciate your input. You’re absolutely right, decimation is a well-established technique and it’s been integrated into various engines over the years. The AUTOLOD feature in Unreal Engine 5 just makes the process more accessible and streamlined within the engine itself. You can often get away with just decimating organic forms that won’t be animated: rocks, tree trunks, and so on. It’s all about finding the right balance for the project at hand.

[@haggets_]

I think this knowledge is still useful to learn, especially nowadays where "optimization" is not a word in most 3D designer's vocabulary

[@turningcog]

Its not that is should exist , it is a where to find it that is the important part , there are so many hidden menus and stuff deep in the engine that most users dont know pretty standard things are just a couple clicks away

[@Auras2002]

does that work with outside assets or even weapons/enemies?

[@unreal_archviz]

It works with all static meshes. I wouldn't use it for the weapons and enemies because these are some of the most important objects in the game and the player's eye often focuses on them. It's better to optimize them properly. AutoLod is more for situations when you just want a quick result for some mid to background meshes.