Create Skeletal Mesh LODs

LODs are extremely important for your mod creature. This allows the game to switch to a lower triangle count version of your creature if they are far away from the camera, or are being displayed on a weaker gaming device like mobile phones. It's highly recommended to use LODs for your creature.

Step 1: Auto-Generate LODs

1. Open your creature's Skeletal Mesh.
2. In the Asset Details panel, scroll down to the LOD Settings section.
3. Change the Number of LODs setting to 4 and click "Apply Changes"
4. After the LODs have generated, scroll down to Minimum LOD and press the (+) button and add a new "Mobile" entry.
5. Set the Mobile number to 1

You have now generated some lower triangle LODs for your mesh that will display at different view distances. Remember to do this for all your subspecies meshes if you have them!

Step 2: Adjust LOD Settings (Optional)

You can optionally adjust your LODs to increase or decrease the amount of triangles that are reduced, in case you notice your creature is a bit too blocky.

1. In the top left of your Skeletal Mesh viewport, select LOD 0 and change it to LOD 1
2. Next, under Reduction Settings, you can change the number of triangles you want to target. By default it will be 0.25, but you may want to adjust it to 0.5 or 0.4 depending on the complexity of your mesh.
3. Click "Regenerate LOD" to see the changes to your mesh.
4. Do this for LOD 2 and LOD 3 as well until it looks good.

Summary

By following this tutorial you will have completed the following:

• Created LODs for your skeletal mesh
• Optionally adjusted the reduction settings