Environments

Billboards

To create billboards, create a plane mesh with the prefix “BB_”. Ensure that the top level grouping of the mesh is named this (ex. BB_Tree, BB_Fence_1).

Optimize Environment Models

To optimize environment models, install the nds_environment_optimizer.py Blender plugin in tools/plugins/blender. You need to prepare your environment model before optimizing it:

1. In Object Mode everything (A), then go into Edit Mode and select everything again (A)
2. Click the “M” key, and select Merge -> By Distance

To use the optimizer:

1. Go back into Object Mode and click “N”. On the sidebar, you should see a tab called NDS Engine
2. Click that, and you should see a popup called NDS Environment Optimizer with a Optimize Environment button
3. Now, select the objects you want to optimize, and click Optimize Environment. This may take a few minutes
4. Once its down optimizing, on the bottom left of the viewport, there will be a dropdown called Optimize Environment. Click that to expand and modify optimization settings.

The most important options under Optimize Environment are

• Planar angle (0-45): Modifying this value changes how ‘optimized’ the models become
• Ignore polys below #: Ignores polygons below the selected number. Useful to avoid messing up flat objects, and smaller objects

Blender Export Settings

See the export settings below:

After you export the file, open the .mtl file and ensure that the file path for the texture is just <texture>.png, NOT /path/to/somewhere/<texture>.png