lowest, low, med and high?

[The_Ferret]

Unit models are listed [unit]_lowest, [unit]_low, [unit]_med, [unit]_high.

What is the difference?

[Bwian]

Each model is a different level of detail. Higher detail = higher polygon count.

Obviousely, if all your models have lots of polygons and lovely detail, when viewed halfway across the battlefield, you are not going to be able to appreciate them. What game designers do is to make various levels of detail ( called LODs in most game designing circles ) with decreasing amounts of polygons. The further away the model is from the 'viewer' the lower the detail of the model displayed. If you look at the files, you will see a drawdistance given for each level of detail. This should be the range at which the games rendering engine switches up or down between details.

Work out the difference in poly count between a high and low detail model, multiply that by the number of units displayed in a big battle, and you will see the amount of load the renderering engine is not having to do!

What tends to happen, when people mod, is for them to do away with low detail models, and just stick their model in all levels of detail. While this works fine, you are heading for a world of trouble when people with slower PC's try to fight a big battle! It really is worth the trouble to make the lower detail models.