AutoLOD - Impostors

AutoLOD - Impostors is an easy tool that provides full impostor management, from baking to rendering, with automatic LOD Group setup.

⚠️ AutoLOD - Impostors is only supported by the Built-in and the Universal Render Pipelines. Baking on HDRP is currently NOT supported. If you want to use this asset on HDRP, you will have to bake impostors using a URP project and then use the HDRP Toolkit⚠️

• What is an impostor?

An impostor is a billboard that displays an image of a 3D object. The image will update and change according to the viewing angle in order to fake a 3D effect and save on performance.

• When should I use it?

Impostors are mainly used to render static objects far off in the distance in order to optimize the scene.

You could also use them to get a unique art style with a 3D "snapping" effect.

• Can any object in my scene be replaced with an impostor?

Technically, any object with a mesh renderer attached can be replaced with an impostor. However, they should mainly be used to replace static meshes in the far distance. At closer range, the difference will be noticeable as a simple quad doesn't intersect the same way with surrounding objects in the same way as the original mesh. Also, impostors are baked in orthographic view which means that the perspective will be wrong at closer ranges.

• Are impostors compatible with the LODGroup component?

Yes. You also don't have to mess with geometry alignment, by default the tool sets the LODs for you.

• How long does it take to bake an impostor?

Depending on your hardware and the baking settings, it may take up to 30 seconds.

• Can I build on any platform?

The impostors shader is based on Unity high-level surface shader so you should be able to build on any platform.

• Are there any required dependencies?

No. This is a standalone package.

Technical details

• You can use your own baking scene for any specific lighting settings
• You can choose the atlas size from 128x128 to 4096x4096
• You can know the size of the generated impostor before baking it
• Supports DXT1/DXT5 compression to limit the memory usage of the generated textures
• You can bake objects following an UV sphere vertices coordinates or a Pseudo-Fibonacci sphere (uniform areas) according to your needs
• You can preview the camera positions for baking as well as the atlas coverage directly in the editor window.
• You can optionnally setup an automatic LODGroup after baking the impostor
• If the target already has a LODGroup, you can either replace an eventual impostor or add the new one in the last position.
• Thanks to the Latitude Offset parameter it is possible to bake hemispheres or partial hemispheres
• You can save and load presets. 11 presets are included.