In order to do any processing in InstaLOD Studio, a "profile" needs to be created. Profiles are similar to the concept of projects in other applications. They are the native file format of Studio and creating a profile is necessary to be able to process meshes.
¶ Profiles
To create a profile, navigate to File in the main menu and select New Profile... Studio provides a specialized UI (workspace) for each profile type.
To load an existing profile, simply drag and drop it onto the application, or go to File and select Open Profile... in the main menu.
Profiles are human-readable JSON files. You can load profiles that are shipped with InstaLOD Pipeline into InstaLOD Studio, and vice versa. InstaLOD Pipeline and our integrations can directly process profiles created in InstaLOD Studio.
¶ Mesh Operations
Once a mesh operation profile is loaded into InstaLOD Studio, mesh operations can be created and executed in the Mesh Operations window. Selecting an entry in the list allows to edit it in the Mesh Operation Settings where you can change the operation type by switching between tabs. After setting up a mesh operation, press Start to run it on the current scene. Multiple entries can also be added to the Mesh Operations list and executed at the same time which allows creating a LODs for your scene quickly.
While mesh operations are in progress, several parts of the application are greyed out and cannot be used. When finished, the result will be automatically loaded into the viewport.
¶ Running your First Mesh Operation in InstaLOD Studio
To run your first mesh operation, create a new mesh operation profile as described in the above Profiles section. Open a mesh by navigating to File and select Open Scene or by a simple drag and drop operation.
The default mesh operation optimizes a mesh to 50% of its original polygon count, as is visible in the Mesh Operation Settings. Change the Percent Triangles to "25%".
In the Mesh Operations window, press Start to run the optimization. Once it’s finished, the optimized mesh will be displayed in the Viewport.
You can make changes to the profile and apply them to the original, unmodified mesh. There are two ways to achieve that. The direct way is to press Start again, in which case a pop-up window will ask if you would like to process the Processed mesh or the original Unmodified mesh.
Alternatively, you can undo one or more processing steps using the Timeline located at the top right of the Viewport.
To execute a mesh operation after navigating through the Timeline, you must first truncate or delete the Timeline by Right-Clicking the arrow on the last timeline entry.
¶ Mastering InstaLOD Studio
To master InstaLOD Studio as fast as possible, it is recommended to read through the articles in the InstaLOD Studio section of our documentation website.
Furthermore, we regularly upload new content to our YouTube channel. For example, the following video showcases the latest additions to InstaLOD Studio 2023.