[Bobboau]

if there are places with lots of detail that you would only see relitively close by, breake them into subobjects and call me

[Omniscaper]

Thats USEFULL info. So subobjects should not exceed 20k polys. Same with material assignments? Ok..... enter my new goal.... a 80k model!!!

::maniacle laughter:: I just want to see the code ride the limits!

[Bobboau]

actualy now that I think of it, that's not right, it's 65536 verts per texture per subobject (actualy it might just be per subobject, I think we might be useing just one vertex buffer per object and splitting up the index buffer now)

there realy isn't a poly limit of any kind you can have as many polygons as you want so long as you define them within 3 of 65536 verts

[Omniscaper]

Let me do some experimenting here. So should I limit subobject poly's to 60k or 20k? Or is the material polygon assignments should be limited?

[Mongoose]

That is one of the most amazing things I've seen this game engine do.  Someone dare to tell me that isn't a movie-quality shot.

[Bobboau]

you know I'm not even sure anymore, feel free to try to break it though

[Liberator]

I don't want to take away from it, it is very nice, but for 50,000+ polies I would have expected all the ridges, major hull details, and the deck guns to be modeled.

[Omniscaper]

I'd like to know limits because I am modelling the Galactica at the moment. I'd like to know if the amount of ribbing I'm gonna put in can be successfully converted.

However modeled that Galactica wasted so much polygons on curvature. I know better. If this is gonna be high poly, I'm putting it where it counts.

With the Trek models, I've never seen a model break the 15k mark. So this is just an experiment on polygon limits.

[Overlord]

Now we need normalmapping.

[Omniscaper]

Isn't there a way to implement bump-mapping without the use of pixel shaders? Bob?

[Bobboau]

eh... no

[Omniscaper]

Wait a minute, I recall the days before graphics cards had pixel shaders (Riva-TNT, Rage 3d,  Voodoo 3) there was an "emboss" type of bump-mapping. Games like "Expendable" used such a thing. And after that when the Geforce 2 GTS came out (no pixel shaders there) games like Giants:Citizen Kabuto used a form of bumpmapping.

[Bobboau]

still requiers vertex shaders

[deep_eyes]

Well its lookin great, but rememeber OMNI not everyone got ur uber pc specs.

[Fury]

Riva TNT, GF1 or GF2 can hardly be considered as über.

[Bobboau]

Omni's specs:
Dual 2.66ghz Xeon cpus
1gb pc2100
Geforce 6600gt 128mb

that's prety ubber

[Bobboau]

oh, and Omni could you load that up int this build and tell me if it runs faster or slower. it should run signifigantly faster, but it might be slower

[Nuke]

Originally posted by Omniscaper
Wait a minute, I recall the days before graphics cards had pixel shaders (Riva-TNT, Rage 3d,  Voodoo 3) there was an "emboss" type of bump-mapping. Games like "Expendable" used such a thing. And after that when the Geforce 2 GTS came out (no pixel shaders there) games like Giants:Citizen Kabuto used a form of bumpmapping.

those were software shaders i believe. from the days before htl. polycounts werent excessive and so software shaders could be used without a big slowdown. i think htl needs hardware shaders to work at a decent framerate.

giants was a cool game and i remember the shader effects well. thats the first game i remember seeing that had any form of bumpmapping. of course it was only the second game i remember playing that had env mapping.  the game was somethign else, big open areas, decent graphics, and it was ****ihng halarious. did descent 3 have bumpmapping? i remember some textures in the game had a bumpy look but it coulda just been fancy texturing tricks.

[Omniscaper]

Just a note:

Games do NOT benefit from dual cpu's unless SPECIFICALLY written for such a rig. Quake 3, I believe is the ONLY PC game that has SMP (single-multi processor) support.

Game-wise, my system can easily be smoked by a single 2.66ghz Pentium 4, with a 800mhz bus, and faster memory speed of a PC3200.

Xeon's are NOT designed for realtime application efficiency such as games. They are used to enhance server tasks and render crunching (video editing, 3d rendering, and effects rendering). So don't try to race me on that department unless you got a faster Xeon.

[Bobboau]

I still say that's prety ubber.

and test that build damnit!