Remesher

Simplygon's remeshing technology has been used to optimize hundreds of AAA games’ distant vistas. The remesher takes an input 3D scene and outputs a new lightweight proxy object, simplifying complex geometry for more efficient rendering.

The Remesher operates using a volumetric remeshing process that generates a new watertight mesh, excluding unnecessary internal geometry. During this process, materials from the original model are transferred through material merging, typically resulting in a single-material object that reduces draw calls. The remesher can also transfer other important data, including skinning, normals, and vertex colors.

This technology is especially useful for Hierarchical Level of Detail (HLOD) systems, where it remeshes objects or terrain tiles for distant viewing. It simplifies less visible details, such as windows and cracks, helping to balance performance with visual quality.

While integrating Simplygon’s remesher into your game’s build pipeline is recommended for automating the optimization of distant vistas, it can also remesh individual assets, offering flexibility based on your needs.

The remesher is designed to create proxies optimized for specific on-screen pixel sizes. Its settings can be adjusted to determine the complexity of the output geometry. For further simplification, geometry culling can also be applied to remove unnecessary parts, such as geometry below ground or intersecting objects, which is useful for reducing overdraw.

In addition to its standalone capabilities, the remesher integrates smoothly with other Simplygon features:

• Character LOD Chains: Use remeshing to create the lowest detail LODs in a triangle reducer-based character LOD chain to allow for further optimization, allowing you to render even more characters at a distance.
• Customizable Objects: Apply remeshing with geometry data casters to create proxies for customizable in-game objects.
• Complex Materials: Utilize remeshing with compute casters to create proxies of assets with detailed vertex color blended materials.
• Unreal Engine plugin: If you are using Unreal Engine as your game engine of choice, the remeshing pipeline is also integrated into the Simplygon plugin for Unreal Engine, simplifying the process of creating more effective and efficient HLODs.
• NVIDIA Micro-Mesh: If you target top-tier hardware, such as the RTX4000+ series, the remesher also supports NVIDIA’s micro-mesh technology.

To discover how Simplygon's remeshing technology can enhance your game development process, feel free to contact us for an evaluation or request a product demo.