[Knight Templar]

How the hell did you put 600 polies in that?

[TopAce]

It is not a cube

[Knight Templar]

Really? I would never have known...

[TopAce]

I have known(and I still know) that this cruiser needs replacing. But I have no IDEA how may a new vasudan ship look like.

[StratComm]

I could make a million poly cube if I wanted to, but what would be the point?  It's not in how many polys you use, it's how you use them.

TopAce, would you mind showing us a couple of wireframe shots of your ships?  You are consistantly using FAR too many polys to make the ships that you do, and I'd love to provide some pointers on conserving polys.

[TopAce]

Do you want a wireframe view of ONLY this cruiser, or all models I am having?

[TopAce]

Here they are. The white is LOD0, the other two are LOD tests.
Enjoy

[Knight Templar]

just start with the cruiser.

[StratComm]

Oh, there's the problem.  TopAce, you realize that the total polycount can go far over the 800 "limit", right?  Some minor issues, you can't possibly have more than 200 polygons invested in the hull, which should be at minimum for a capship somewhere closer to 400.  The 600 figure you gave me must count those turrets (Way too many polys in those BTW.  Way, way, way too many.  The typical turret is somewhere between 10 and 30 polygons.) and the lower LODs.  Otherwise you aren't too far off.  If you could just get the cruiser hull (no turrets, lods, etc) it would be a little easier to see.  Also, let me dig up a quick wireframe on a Vasudan ship I've been working on for DatDB.  (It's already publicly known guys, don't worry)

EDIT:  Here TopAce, this is a hull approaching the limits of plain FS tolerences.  The perspective wireframe only shows polys facing you, but the others show all the polys.  The final pic is what she looks like with textures.

[TopAce]

The exact polycount for the ship is 544, with turrets. Excluding the turrets: 362. the turrets are 182 polies(4 turrets, 1x83, and 3x33)

[TopAce]

It's very nice . How many polies is it?

[Taristin]

I really like that model's geometry, but not the textures, Strat.

I need to learn to model better, so please, keep goin with this.

[karajorma]

Triangulating the model didn't help your poly count either. It hugely increases the poly count for very little appreciable gain.

In fact when the HT&L code comes into effect triangulating will in fact become pointless (at least in FS2_open) as the game will automatically do it anyway.

[TopAce]

Ehh ... kara, ICQ says you are away. Can we have a talk?

[StratComm]

Ok topace, with your ship:  You've got two issues going on that are killing your polycount and making you stop detailing long before you have to.  For one thing, I still have no idea where about half your polys are hiding out .  However, that said, I would recommend that you reduce the polycount.  Lets start by seeing just how unnecessary most of those polys are.  Boolean subtracting a cube that doesn't intersect your model will get rid of any triangulations that TS considers unnecessary, so do this.  Make sure you have delete edges checked in the Boolean options, or this won't work.  Do this, and see how many polys your hull has once this is done.  It may be overzealous, but you'll have an easier time putting back the ones you know you need.  Truespace will not delete verts this way to my knowledge, but it will combine most of the faces that you've got extra.  Now, recreate any faces that are needed to preserve FS geometry as dictated in Kara's FAQ.  Don't connect any edges to vertices that are simply on an edge though, these are extra too and need to be deleted.  Other general tips: when you have two or more polygons that look flat from any angle, make them a single polygon except when it breaks FS rules of geometry.  Make them flat if you need to.  Anytime you have a vertex directly between two others, remove the extra vertex and you'll save yourself at least two polys.  Any time you have a vertex in the middle of a section that looks flat, get rid of it and you save yourself at least 3 polys.  On your ship, the nose is a prime candidate for this.  There are probably close to a hundred polygons there that could be replaced with something like 6 and still have the same level of detail.  Your other option for adding detail is to move a lot of those verts to where they aren't linear (though in the nose a lot are redundant), especially in places like the sides where you have a line breaking two rows of polygons that are virtually planar.  Move those lines out, it'll do wonders for making the thing non-square.  The other issue is the turrets; they are way to high poly for what they are.  Even if you want the same shape, neither of those should be more than 20 polys.  Most especially the funny tall one in the middle, that thing looks rediculous.  

My model is 778 polys, a carrier.  However, a significant number of those polygons (200+) are tied up in the launch tubes, so without them this thing would be right in cruiser range for level of complexity.  Another thing to keep in mind; if you are extruding and scaling (which it looks like you are doing) then you will always be creating planar faces when you scale uniformly.  These faces don't have to be triangulated.

[TopAce]

As of this moment, polycount is not a problem, the problem is how that ship looks like.

[StratComm]

I know that, but it seems that you stop detailing ships when you feel the polycount is approaching critical.  Truth of the matter is, you're no where close.  I can't really tell you how to design ships, much less good vasudan ones (I only got the two or three good one's I've made after playing with some features I hadn't ever tried before.)  The carrier was a slight exception; I had an idea when looking at the Hatshepsut and just followed it through.  Most people model from some kind of concept, but I just do it by the seat of my pants, so to say.  Anyway, to make ships look better, you just have to add detail.  This thing looks like it could be done in something like 20 polygons and still have the same shape from anything but immediate range.  You need things like curves and different ship elements, something you started to work on but didn't get enough of.  You shouldn't ever have a single hull color or piece unless your design really calls for it; you need different sections that look like they serve different functions.  Helping you save polys in your design phase will allow you to add more detail later on.  Just keep trying, modeling is an art, not a science, and I can't give you a formula that will make you better at it.

A general rule of thumb though on what makes a ship plain and undeailed is putting it to the test of the primitives.  If you can represent the ship with a handful of primitives (cylinders, cubes, spheres, etc stretched and modified slightly, but not much) without losing much detail, you need a better design.

[Galemp]

Originally posted by StratComm
A general rule of thumb though on what makes a ship plain and undeailed is putting it to the test of the primitives.  If you can represent the ship with a handful of primitives (cylinders, cubes, spheres, etc stretched and modified slightly, but not much) without losing much detail, you need a better design.

I like figural elements.

[TopAce]

I tried modelling a new vasudan cruiser. Made something, and PCS or the game is always having some problem with it. I hate modelling for FS. That engine sucks.

[karajorma]

A poor workman blames his tools TopAce. It's not the FS2 engine that sucks at all. If you think that it is the problem make the same model for your enhanced version of RR.
 With Hardware Taransform and Lighting you've got 20,000+ polys to spend on your cruiser. With that many to use you can't blame FS2 if your model turns out poor.