While all the previous fixes to optimizeVertexCache invocation fixed the
vertex transform efficiency, the import code still was missing two
crucial recommendations from meshoptimizer documentation:
- All meshes should be optimized for vertex cache (this reorders
vertices for maximum fetch efficiency)
- When LODs are used with a shared vertex buffer, the vertex order
should be generated by doing a vertex fetch optimization on the
concatenated index buffer from coarse to fine LODs; this maximizes
fetch efficiency for coarse LODs
The last point is especially crucial for Mali GPUs; unlike other GPUs
where vertex order affects fetch efficiency but not shading, these GPUs
have various shading quirks (depending on the GPU generation) that
really require consecutive index ranges for each LOD, which requires the
second optimization mentioned above. However all of these also help
desktop GPUs and other mobile GPUs as well.
Because this optimization is "global" in the sense that it affects all
LODs and all vertex arrays in concert, I've taken this opportunity to
isolate all optimization code in this function and pull it out of
generate_lods and create_shadow_mesh; this doesn't change the vertex
cache efficiency, but makes the code cleaner. Consequently,
optimize_indices should be called after other functions like
create_shadow_mesh / generate_lods.
This required exposing meshopt_optimizeVertexFetchRemap; as a drive-by,
meshopt_simplifySloppy was never used so it's not exposed anymore - this
will simplify future meshopt upgrades if they end up changing the
function's interface.
"Raycast Normals" was introduced in 4.4 dev and defaulted to "false".
The limited testing results at the time suggested that raycasting
generally reduces normal quality compared to native simplifier results,
at the same time increasing vertex memory and import time.
To play it safe, we introduced a setting that defaulted to false, with
the goal of removing it later in 4.4 development cycle if no regressions
are noticed. Since we already had three dev snapshots and no reports,
this change removes the setting and associated code.
"Normal Split Angle" was only used when raycast normals were enabled;
this change removes it from the settings, but keeps it in the script
binding for compatibility.
Existing meshes import exactly the same after this change (unless they
chose to override raycasting which would be surprising).
split_normals helper was only used in this code path and is also removed
for simplicity; it is unlikely that this code will be useful as is, as
it can only regenerate normals without fixing tangents or updating
positions.
Previously, vertex cache optimization was ran for the LOD meshes, but
was never ran for the base mesh or for the shadow meshes, including
shadow LOD chain (shadow LOD chain would sometimes get implicitly
optimized for vertex cache as a byproduct of base LOD optimization, but
not always). This could significantly affect the rendering performance
of geometry heavy scenes, especially for depth or shadow passes where
the fragment load is light.
Normal raycaster makes LOD generation process >2x slower and often
generates normals that look significantly worse compared to what the
simplifier comes up with by default. This was likely different before
last meshoptimizer upgrade, as the attribute metric was not functioning
properly, but now it looks like it's doing more harm than good.
This change makes it disabled by default but keeps an easy option to
re-enable it per mesh using LOD parameters for now until we get more
confidence and can remove the code outright.
Because the long term plan would be to disable this feature entirely,
the scripting API isn't changed, and it's just off-by-default there with
no way to re-enable.
