How to optimise a FiveM vehicle: polygons, LODs and texture budget

FiveM sets no polygon limit. What the server measures is the memory each streamed file needs once loaded, and it warns above 16 MiB per file. So the target is per file, not per vehicle: the .yft, the _hi.yft and the .ytd are each checked on their own. The steps of that warning are in vehicle model files and the oversized asset warning.

File	What makes it heavy	What to do
.ytd	Texture resolution and format	Resize and compress textures.
_hi.yft	Triangle count of the detailed mesh	Remove geometry nobody sees, reduce dense parts.
.yft	Triangle count of the lower levels, plus collision	Make real lower LODs instead of copies of the detailed mesh.

A number from our own work: a sim-racing car we converted arrived with about 512,000 triangles. After the conversion and before any reduction, its model file still needed about 28 MiB of virtual memory, well past the first warning step. Models built for other games are not built to this budget, so expect to reduce them.

• Server console. Start the resource and read the console. A line naming the file and its MiB appears for every file over 16 MiB. No line means every file passed.
• Triangles per level in Blender. In Sollumz Tools > Drawables > LOD Tools > Auto LOD, select a Drawable Model and the panel shows LOD Statistics: triangles and vertices of each level that has a mesh.
• Textures. Memory per texture depends only on resolution and format. The table is in the model files guide: a 2048 x 2048 DXT5 texture is 5.33 MiB, a 4096 one is 21.3 MiB.

Sollumz gives every Drawable Model five slots. On export the top one becomes the _hi.yft and the other four go into the main .yft.

Sollumz level	File	lodDistances value that ends it	Stock Sultan
Very High	_hi.yft	1st	10 m
High	.yft	2nd	25 m
Medium	.yft	3rd	50 m
Low	.yft	4th	100 m
Very Low	.yft	5th	500 m

The sixth value is where the vehicle stops being drawn. The distances live in vehicles.meta, not in the model:

<!-- _hi, High, Medium, Low, Very Low, fade out (metres) -->
<lodDistances content="float_array">
  10.000000
  25.000000
  50.000000
  100.000000
  500.000000
  500.000000
</lodDistances>

The stock Faggio scooter uses 15, 30, 50, 100, 500, 500. A mistake we have seen in converted cars is a line like 10, 150, 150, 150, 150, 150: the High mesh is drawn out to 150 m and then the car disappears, so the lower levels are never shown even if the model has them. The field is explained in vehicles.meta explained, and what LODs are in what are LODs in FiveM vehicles.

Open Sollumz Tools > Drawables > LOD Tools > Auto LOD. The tool copies a reference mesh and reduces it for each level you tick, then Generate LODs fills the slots.

Setting	Default	Meaning
Reference Mesh		The mesh to copy and reduce. Use the most detailed one.
Method	Collapse	Collapse is the general-purpose choice. Un-Subdivide suits meshes made by subdivision, Planar dissolves flat areas.
Decimate Step	0.6	One uniform step applied for each level.
Per-LOD Ratios	Off	When on, each level gets its own ratio. The defaults are 0.90, 0.70, 0.50, 0.30 and 0.15 from Very High to Very Low, and a level can use a target triangle count instead.
Decimate from Original	Off	Reduce every level from the reference instead of from the level above.

Automatic reduction is a starting point. What we check by hand afterwards:

• Lights. Small glowing parts collapse into nothing first. Keep the original mesh for indicators and taillights on every level, or protect them from the reduction.
• Parts on different bones. Reduce each model on its own so a door never shares a vertex with the body.
• Silhouette. The lowest level only has to look right from 100 m or more. Interior, engine and underside can go entirely.
• Motorcycle wheels. On the two-wheelers we built, the game did not draw the separate wheel model at the lowest level. Stock bikes handle this by putting a simple wheel shape inside the body mesh of that level, and we do the same.

These are the sizes we use by role. Never upscale: a texture that arrives at 1024 stays at 1024.

Texture	Size
Livery, main atlas, lamp lenses	2048
Body normal map, tyre	1024
Tiling detail textures (carbon, fabric, grilles)	512
Small interior parts	256
Flat colours	4 x 4

• Format. DXT1 (BC1) without transparency, DXT5 (BC3) with it. A DXT1 texture uses half the memory of the same texture in DXT5.
• Flat colours. Save 4 x 4 single-colour textures uncompressed. They cost almost nothing, and block compression shifted our dark greys towards purple and green.
• Shared textures. Specular, normal and dirt maps that already exist in the game's shared vehicle textures do not need a copy in your .ytd.
• Unused textures. Converted models carry textures no material uses. Delete them.
• Convert outside Blender. Resize and compress with a texture tool and load the result. Re-saving images from Blender darkened ours.

Yes, from its source file. Open the .blend the vehicle was exported from, add the lower levels and export again. What we avoid is importing a finished .yft into Blender and exporting it back: the round trip rewrote small values in the skeleton, and on one of our vehicles that was enough to break its entry and exit animations in game.

Textures are safer to change afterwards. A .ytd can be opened, its textures replaced by smaller ones with the same names, and saved, without touching the model. The tools for each job are in CodeWalker vs Sollumz.

1. No texture above 2048, none uncompressed except 4 x 4 colours.
2. No unused textures in the .ytd.
3. The model has a Very High mesh and four lower levels.
4. Lights still show on every level.
5. lodDistances has six rising values, not the same number repeated.
6. The server console prints no size line for the resource.

The whole modelling workflow is in how to make a FiveM vehicle in Blender with Sollumz. As a reference from our catalog, the Coil S-Cooter and the three hoverboards ship with four LODs, High to Very Low.