LODs for Game Assets: When You Need Them and When You Do Not

Short answer: an LOD (level of detail) is a lighter copy of a model that the engine draws when the object is far from the camera. You need one for large or often repeated assets that players see from a distance, such as buildings, trees and bridges. Small props and modular wall pieces rarely need one. In our Larkspur Vale assets, 62 of 242 designs ship an LOD1, each between 34% and 45% of the full mesh.

Most results for this topic explain the idea and stop there. This guide adds the numbers: which kinds of asset got an LOD in a real low poly collection, how much lighter they are, where the switch happens, and what Godot and Unity actually do with the files on import. Triangle counts and the LOD1 notes come from the live product pages of the Larkspur Farmstead, Larkspur Village, Larkspur Fields and Larkspur Wilds collections, checked in October 2026. LOD1 sizes and the import behaviour come from our build records and our own engine import checks of the delivered files.

What an LOD is and what it saves

Every model you place has a full-detail mesh, called LOD0. An LOD1 is a second, simpler version of the same object with the same size, pivot and silhouette. Some pipelines add LOD2, LOD3 and so on. While the camera is close, the engine draws LOD0. Past a switch distance it draws LOD1 instead. Only one of the two is drawn at any moment.

What you save is triangle and vertex work for objects that cover only a few pixels on screen. What you do not save is the number of objects or materials drawn: a distant barn is still one object with one material, just with fewer triangles. If your scene is limited by object count rather than triangle count, LODs alone will not fix it, and a shared texture atlas or merging distant objects does more.

LODs also have costs. Each one takes memory, needs a switch distance, and can visibly "pop" when it swaps. That is why it is worth deciding per asset class instead of adding them to everything.

When you need an LOD and when you do not

Larkspur Vale is a soft low poly farm valley with 242 designs in four collections. Each design has a triangle budget by class, and the build rule was simple: every large or hero design and every tree ships an LOD1, while small things do not. Here is how that played out, measured from the build records.

The pattern is about size and repetition, not about style. A 12 m barn or a 14 m pine is visible from across the map, so it spends most of its screen life far away. A milk churn at 1.09 m wide is usually seen up close or not at all, and at 1,160 triangles there is little left to remove. A modular wall at 200 triangles is already close to a box. Cutting it further would save almost nothing and risk gaps where it meets its neighbours.

A useful test for your own assets: ask how far away the object is usually seen and how many copies of it are on screen at once. Big and far, or many and repeated, earns an LOD. Small, close and rare does not. For triangle ceilings by asset type, see how many triangles is low poly.

How much lighter an LOD1 should be

Across all 62 Larkspur designs with an LOD1, the lighter mesh is between 34% and 45% of the full mesh, with a median of 42%. Added up, those designs go from 179,094 triangles at full detail to 74,389 in their LOD1 versions. These are some of the live products, with the switch distance our import check used (explained in the next section).

Two choices kept those LOD1 meshes useful. Most were rebuilt from simpler parts rather than run through an automatic reducer, so the barn keeps its roof line, gable and doors, and a tree keeps the shape of its crown. Only three designs had an extra decimation pass. And moving parts get their own LOD1 copies: the barn's sliding doors drop from 320 to 232 triangles each, so a door that is open at a distance stays open after the swap.

Choosing the switch distance

Switch too early and players see the swap. Switch too late and you pay for detail nobody can see. A simple rule that scales with the object: switch at about 3.5 times its largest dimension, and never closer than 10 m. That is the rule our Godot import check used, which is why the barn switches at 44.5 m and the bed at 10 m. Treat it as a starting point, then walk past the asset in your own game at your own field of view and adjust.

Two things change the right distance. A wider field of view or a lower resolution makes objects smaller on screen, so you can switch sooner. A slow, close camera, such as a cosy farming game, can hold LOD0 longer than a fast top-down camera. Adding a small margin around the switch point stops an object from flickering between versions when the camera hovers at the edge.

What Godot and Unity do with an LOD1 on import

Larkspur files name the full mesh after the asset, for example LV_RedBarn, and the lighter one LV_RedBarn_LOD1, next to a LV_RedBarn_collision proxy. We imported the delivered files of all four collections in Godot (GLB and FBX) and Unity (FBX, Built-in render pipeline) in October 2026. These were headless import checks, not visual reviews. Here is what a plain drag-in import does.

The Godot manual describes both paths. By default Godot generates its own simplified meshes for imported glTF, FBX and .blend scenes and uses them automatically, choosing them by how large the object is on screen. For artist-made LOD meshes it points to visibility ranges, set per node in the Visibility Range section of the inspector, with Begin Margin and End Margin to soften the switch. The two can be used together.

The Unity manual explains why no LOD Group appears. Unity builds one automatically only when every mesh carries an _LODX suffix, including _LOD0 on the most detailed one. Our full meshes keep the plain asset name, so you either rename them before import or add the LOD Group by hand: create the group on the model root, open each LOD level, and add the matching renderers. Either way, also hide or convert the collision proxy, which both engines import as a visible mesh. Our game-ready checklist covers collision and naming in more detail.

Automatic LODs or authored ones?

Automatic reduction is quick and often good enough for rocks, props and background clutter. It struggles where a few edges carry the shape: roof ridges, thin posts, tree crowns made of a handful of faceted blobs. Low poly assets are full of those edges, so a 50% automatic cut can turn a barn into a lump. An authored LOD1 keeps the outline because a person decided which parts to merge or drop.

A practical split: author LOD1 for heroes, buildings and trees, the things players look at from across the map, and let the engine's automatic system handle the rest. Then check the result in the engine. Godot's manual suggests turning mesh LOD off and on in the viewport debug menu while watching the primitive count and frame time, which shows whether the swap is helping in your scene.

Common questions

What is LOD in game development?

LOD means level of detail: lighter versions of a model that the engine draws when the object is far from the camera. LOD0 is the full mesh, LOD1 the next lighter one, and so on.

Does LOD improve performance?

It reduces the triangles drawn for distant objects, which helps when vertex and triangle work is the limit. It does not reduce the number of objects or materials, so a scene limited by object count needs batching, a shared atlas or merged meshes as well. Measure in your engine before and after.

Do low poly games need LODs?

Less than detailed games, but large and repeated assets still benefit. In Larkspur Vale only a quarter of the designs needed one: buildings, large props, trees and river pieces. Small props and modular pieces stayed single-mesh.

Should LOD bias be high or low?

In Godot, an LOD Bias above 1.0 makes transitions happen later, which looks better but costs more. Below 1.0 they happen sooner, which is faster but shows simpler meshes closer to the camera. Raise it for hero objects players inspect, lower it for clutter.

To try authored LODs in a real level, the Larkspur Vale world brings all four collections together, and the low poly trees and rocks guide covers the nature side of the valley.