User perception of varying level of detail for Imposters

Abstract: As the time to render frames increases with the amount of 3D models present and the level of detail of these models, finding a way to render these objects more efficiently would allow real time applications to render a larger number of objects. One such technique is Imposters, but their level of detail is limited by texture memory, especially for animated objects. A user study was performed to investigate how changing the level of detail of the angles or frames for imposters in a crowd simulation impacts the perceived realism. The results of this study show that the participants’ confidence in their answers fell as the overall quality rose, but the share of answers that aligned with the higher quality side rose together with overall quality.