Installation

LOD Tailor is a C++ editor plugin for Unreal Engine 5.0 to 5.8 (Win64, Mac and Linux editor). It depends on Unreal’s Data Validation plugin, which is enabled automatically when you enable LOD Tailor.

Install from Fab

1. Open ta LOD Tailor on Fab, choose the license that applies to you (Personal or Professional) and add it to your library.

2. In the Epic Games Launcher, open Fab Library, find ta LOD Tailor and click Install to Engine for each engine version you use (5.0 to 5.8).

3. Open your project, go to Edit > Plugins, search for LOD Tailor and enable ta LOD Tailor. Restart the editor when prompted.

4. Open Tools > ta LOD Tailor (in the tridiART section of the Tools menu) and click Scan project.

Installed this way, the plugin lives in the engine and is available to every project. To keep it with one project (for example so the whole team gets it from source control), install it manually instead.

Install manually

1. Close the Unreal Editor.

2. Copy the TALODTailor folder into your project’s Plugins folder. Create the Plugins folder next to your .uproject file if it doesn’t exist yet. The result should look like this:

   MyGame/
     MyGame.uproject
     Plugins/
       TALODTailor/
         TALODTailor.uplugin
         Source/
         Resources/

3. Open the project. If the plugin hasn’t been compiled for your engine version yet, see Build from source below.

4. Open Edit > Plugins, search for LOD Tailor and make sure ta LOD Tailor is enabled. If you had to enable it, restart the editor when prompted.

5. Open Tools > ta LOD Tailor (in the tridiART section of the Tools menu) and click Scan project.

Build from source

The plugin ships with its full C++ source code. If the copy you installed doesn’t contain compiled binaries for your engine version, the plugin has to be built:

• C++ projects: build the project in your IDE (for example Visual Studio 2022 on Windows), or let the editor rebuild the missing modules when it asks on startup.

• Blueprint-only projects: the editor can’t compile plugin code for you. Either add a C++ class to the project (which turns it into a C++ project) and build it, or build the plugin once with Unreal Automation Tool and copy the packaged result into your Plugins folder:

  "C:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_5.6\Engine\Build\BatchFiles\RunUAT.bat" BuildPlugin -Plugin="C:\Path\TALODTailor\TALODTailor.uplugin" -Package="C:\Build\TALODTailor" -TargetPlatforms=Win64

  Use the RunUAT script of the engine version you want to build for.

Your first scan

With the default settings, Scan project reads every static and skeletal mesh under /Game and checks it against the enabled targets: PC, Steam Deck, Switch 2 and Meta Quest. A progress dialog shows each mesh as it is read; you can cancel it and keep the meshes read so far. A scan loads each mesh once, so the first scan of a large project takes a while. To try the plugin on a small part first, select a folder in the Content Browser and click Scan selection, or right-click the folder and choose Check Mesh LODs.

When the scan finishes, every target chip shows the share of meshes that are ready for that target, and the mesh table opens on Needs work with the meshes that have warnings or errors, worst first. Click a target chip such as Meta Quest to see the numbers for that device.

From here you can:

• Read the Editor panel guide to review meshes and findings.
• Check that the targets match the devices you ship on, and change their budgets in Edit > Project Settings > Plugins > ta LOD Tailor. See Settings.
• Build LOD chains for the meshes that need them on the Batch LODs page.
• Check your meshes in your build pipeline. See Command line & CI.

Tip

Settings are saved to Config/DefaultEditor.ini in your project. Commit that file so the whole team uses the same targets, presets and checks. To keep targets, presets and folder rules in an asset instead, see Shared settings and folder rules.

Updating and removing

To update, close the editor and replace the TALODTailor folder with the new version. Your settings live in the project’s Config/DefaultEditor.ini (and in your settings asset, if you use one), not in the plugin folder, so they are kept. Settings that are new in a version start at their default values: targets saved by 1.0, for example, get skeletal budgets of 30,000 triangles (LODs above 5,000) in 1.1, so check them in Project Settings after updating.

To remove the plugin, disable it in Edit > Plugins or delete the TALODTailor folder while the editor is closed. LOD Tailor adds no assets to your project unless you create a settings asset (by default /Game/LODTailor/DA_LODTailorSettings), which you can delete. The changes a batch run made to your meshes (LODs, screen sizes, Min LOD, Nanite settings, merged sections) are regular engine settings and stay as they are. Reports and backups are files, by default in Saved/LODTailor, that you can delete. If you changed the settings, they stay in the [/Script/TALODTailor.TALODTailorSettings] section of Config/DefaultEditor.ini, which you can delete if you no longer need it.