What's a proxy appearance, and how do I get rid of it?
Published: Mar 02 2024 by Last documented update: Mar 02 2024 by
This page explains what Level of Detail is and how it works.
To learn about Level of Detail (LoD), check the corresponding wiki page.
When displaying a complex object, the game loads between 1 and e^x components, each of which includes extra logic. That's all fine and dandy as long as you're up-close — but as soon as you're far away and the details vanish in the distance, it's a complete and utter waste of processing power.
That is where proxy appearances come in: instead of all the complex components and the complex shaders, you will see a single mesh with a bunch of baked-in textures.
All modern computergames do this in one way or another.
Fun fact: the human brain works the same way. Unless you have aphantasia, you can try it out: For an object at the edge of your vision, imagine it with as high-fidelity as you can. After a minute of that (your brain needs time to render), look at the object and compare.
If a proxy appearance fucks up your NPV, here's how you can disable it:
Open the appearance's components array
Find and delete the AppearanceProxyMesh component (it will be of the type entSkinnedMeshComponent)
Find and delete the AppearanceVisualController component (it will be of the type AppearanceVisualControllerComponent)
For each component with a mesh, set the forceLodLevel property to 0