The Detail Levels sub-panel of the Shapes tab is used to create detail levels and to assign Blender scene layers to those detail levels.  Objects in the selected scene layers are exported in the corresponding detail levels.  The Detail Levels panel is divided into two sections: The detail level tools (top and bottom), and the detail levels list (center).

Detail Level tools

The detail level tools are used to add new detail levels to the current shape, or to delete existing detail levels.  The Add button will add a new detail level of the indicated type to the detail levels list.  The "delete selected detail level" button will deleted the selected detail level from the shape and remove it from the detail levels list.  Detail levels may be selected in the list by clicking their names.

Detail Levels list

The detail levels list displays all of the detail levels that have been created for the current shape.  The properties for each detail level may be changed by using the controls associated with each item in the list.

Detail Level list items

Each item (row) in the list represents a detail level.  Detail levels can be one of 3 types: Visible detail levels (DetailX), Collision detail levels (Collision-X), and LOSCollision detail levels (LOSCollision-x).  Two sets of controls accompany each detail level in the list: the pixel size control, and the layer selection buttons.

Pixel size control

The pixel size control associated with each detail level determines the minimum pixel size at which a detail level begins to display in Torque.  This size is based on the width of the shape's bounding box in pixels as displayed on the screen.  For non-rendering detail levels (collision and loscollision), the size is fixed at -1 and cannot be changed.

Layer selection buttons

The layer selection buttons are used to assign Blender Scene layers to a given detail level.  These buttons correspond to the layer buttons in the header of Blender's 3D view.  Single or multiple Blender layers may be assigned to any given detail level.  Clicking a layer button for a given detail level without holding down the shift key will turn that layer on and turn all other layers off (for the given detail level).  Holding down on the shift key while clicking a layer button will add or remove the corresponding layer from the current selection for that detail level.

See Also:

• LOD - Levels of Detail
• Overview of the DTS File Format
• Tutorial 2 - Adding Multiple Levels of Detail
• Node Animations - Notes of Levels of Detail
• Blender Survival Guide - Moving objects between layers
• Changes from earlier versions (v0.97)