Improving the presentation for SimpleLOD

This post is part of the experiment: How to improve Asset Store sales.

The presentation of this cool package on the Asset Store is everything but cool at the moment. There is no video, the key images are dark and dull and the description could use some improvements as well. So here we go.

I recorded a HowTo video and put it online at YouTube.

The current key images look like this:



They use dark colors and will therefor not stand out. Especially the tiny icon is important because this is what people see when they browse through all the packages.
The new images use the default Orbcreation colors: bright green, white and orange. And I gave them a touch of high tech by adding a wireframe of an eye to it. The small icon will look at you from the overview screen with all the other packages and is bound to catch your eye :)




For the description I used the following structure:
- draw attention
- short explanation of what the package is
- enumeration of key qualities
- explain how well it works
- explain advantages over alternatives
- links to resources
- final note

This what I came up with:
Recognize this problem?
You downloaded a model. It looks great, but is way too heavy for it's purpose.

Simple LOD fixes this problem in a very easy way: By generating the LOD meshes for you and making them operational in your GameObject with just a few mouse clicks.

Reduce triangles
Generate LOD levels
Merge meshes
Reduce draw calls
Supports skinned meshes

Simple LOD does a pretty good job at reducing the triangles in your meshes. It also combines meshes and sub meshes to reduce draw calls.

Depending on the complexity and shape of the original mesh, the end result may have less than half the triangles with no visible changes. When you ramp up the compression for higher LOD levels, the reduction goes much further than that. Up close you may notice differences, but when viewed from a distance the model will still look great. It is recommended to play with the compression levels for optimal results.

There are many mesh combine packages, but most of them do not support skinned meshes. With SimpleLOD you can have an avatar model, apply several clothes meshes to it and combine it all into 1 skinned mesh, provided that they all use the same skeleton.

Of course there are also very good alternatives that generate your LOD meshes. But SimpleLOD produces very good results, supports skinned meshes, contains all source code, has no DLL's and uses no external services.

And of course the end result will be better when you model everything by hand.
But not everyone is a master 3D modeler and not everyone can afford those programs. This package is for those people that want an easy solution for a complex problem.

Simple LOD runs entirely inside Unity. The source code is all included and written in C#. There are no DLL's or hidden stuff.

View the online webplayer demo (also included in the package) here
The SimpleLOD documentation can be viewed on our website.
The forum thread can be found here.

Note: Reducing triangles is a complex process and is bound to take some time, varying exponentially from a few milliseconds for small meshes up to a few minutes for meshes with 64K vertices. This action is only needed once, since the reduced mesh is stored in your project folder.


It's been submitted for approval on November 25th. I am very anxious to see if it will help once it has been approved and online.