Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Bobboau on September 25, 2003, 05:04:30 am
-
I just completed a stress test on the new HT&L engine FSO is useing, and it is at least 6 times as fast, probly more than an order of magnatude, meaning you can now ad at least one more zero to the number of polys to can have on a ship (fighters were about 2-500, now 2-5000, capships were 1-2000 now 1-20000) and expect good frame rates, the new HT&L engine, likes the following,
use as few textures as posable,
(use exsesivly large textures (1024X1024) if needed for this, it's that big of a deal)
use as few subobjects as posable (this is no longer a visual quality thing)
high poly counts are now encoureged, even if there is no good reason for them,
lower LODs should remain fairly low, we could just add one super detailed LOD on top of what is alredy there
my test was to convert a pers into cob, NURB it, and convert back to POF
1368 verts
1382 polys, many of them quads, all had to be triangulated during the load
4 of them in mission (+ golgotha, several drones and 4 polaris stations (wich is actualy several of them glued together think theres about 1300 in each)), absolutely no slowdown at all (an aparent 120 FPS), with somewere on the order of 12000 polys
the same mission with the same models in the most recent SCP build was about 20 fps (on my machine)
I chalenge any modeler to create a POF that meats the criteria sugested (namely use fewer than four or five textures on a capship, no more than one on a fighter, this is not a RAM issue, so the texture(s) can be quite large), that slows my computer down below 120 FPS, it simply cannot be done!
-
Sounds good but...
Most [V] capships use much more than 5 textures. Is the number of textures only important with higher poly ships or is it something we need to worry about with models made for use with the original FS2?
You say to limit the number of sub-objects. I presume that means the ~750 poly sub-object limit has gone and we can make models in one piece?
I've also recently been working on some bombs and torpedos for MG. Would there be a problem in increasing the number of polys for them (cause sometimes there can be a lot of them on screen at a time). Also can we use larger textures on them too?
-
:eek2:
-
the HT&L engine likes haveing everything the same, that way it can say, hey you graphics card, here is the position and orientation of the object and camera render those 10000 polygons over there to look right, if you have diferent textures you have two issues, first you have to tell it to render those polys over there twice, second changeing the currently active texture(s) actualy takes longer than rendering the current object
you will note
1368 verts
1382 polys,
one subobject
I'm not sure what the new limits are but I would like someone to try to find them
you can'y have more than 16 textures on one object
you can't have more that 5500 triangles in you're model (it gets triangulated by the engine, you don't realy have to wory about makeing you're model out of triangles, infact haveing mostly quads of something would provide a smaller file and be benifical)
-
so my arcadia with 21 maps won't work anymore? :p
-
I'm not trying to knock this cause it definately sounds like a major improvement but there are a few things I don't quite understand.
The 16 texture limit is for what? Each subobject? Each LOD? Each model? (a few models are going to be broken if it's latter one).
-
16 textures on one subobject, if this is a problem it can be changed
-
Well... not being funny Bob, I mean this is great work and all, but the whole texture thing worries me somewhat. I mean my carrier had over 60 textures when I'd done with it, and PCS told me where to go. I know that's excessive and probably inefficient use of textures but all the same is there anyway you might tweak this issue to have less of an impact?
-
Originally posted by diamondgeezer
Well... not being funny Bob, I mean this is great work and all, but the whole texture thing worries me somewhat. I mean my carrier had over 60 textures when I'd done with it, and PCS told me where to go. I know that's excessive and probably inefficient use of textures but all the same is there anyway you might tweak this issue to have less of an impact?
As far as I know, the problem resides in the fact, that HT&L renders with the same texture as many object in a single session as possible.
Using multiple textures therefore are bad; hence they cap the graphics engine --> ergo a manual cap had to be made to prevent.
I'm not one to do extensive mods, but I assume fusing textures could be a b***ch to do in some cases.
However I'm still in favor of the idea, except for special textures, like nameplates and damage and ect.
The reson is, that if a single or only a couple of textures where used (albeit huge in their resolution) that would make skining all the more easy.
Now, I don't mean reskins alone, but think of the possibilities: you could create a set of custom skins for each craft. Wouldn't it be nice if the pirates for one instance weren't using standard shiny GTVA paintjob on their crappy beat up fighers?
-
the max for the entire model is and always has been 64, I just figured no more than half of that would be in LOD0 and only half of that would likely be in any single subobject, I mean I can't even comprehend why you would need more than 8 textures per model (other than being lazy, wich is a perfictly good reason I supose) but look at it this way, you sacrifice the one instance in wich you would need 64 textures on one submodel for an insainly high framerate, if you absolutly need it, you can seperate the hull into two or more subobjects, and after this it will still render an order of magnatude faster than it does now (the non-HT&L engine), it's just if you send one texture it will be three or four orders of magnatude faster.
-
My friend will love this now he can now but his model to FS that i reskined
-
Sounds ok to me! After all, not even the most powerful games engines in the business, written by people who are being paid to do so, offer absolutely limitless resources to designers :)
Flipside :D
-
I'll try to cook something up! :)
-
Alternatively, someone could bake textures for all current FS/FS2 ships and reconvert them, and have only a single, really high-res map for each ship. I suppose that would speed things up even further.
-
When are we going to see or better yet get your latest masterpeice god...er, Bob?
-
Originally posted by Bobboau
I mean I can't even comprehend why you would need more than 8 textures per model (other than being lazy, wich is a perfictly good reason I supose)
well, for exemple, my arcadia, with its 21 high res maps, is really gorgeous, IMHO :)
edit: anyway, talking with woomeister, I realize that limit will break compatibility with some already released mods. Just put the old map limit, it's up to modders to deal with that. old pofs will still work, but now we know we'll have to optimize more on future mods to help T&L rendering, and that's it.
-
Originally posted by Bobboau
I mean I can't even comprehend why you would need more than 8 textures per model (other than being lazy, wich is a perfictly good reason I supose)
Area-specific details.... though i guess you can split those into seperate parts of single texture and use an unwrapper. Sounds promising, though... just wish I had an photoshop handy...... :(
-
hey bob think u could allow us to test this thing?
-
Originally posted by aldo_14
Area-specific details.... though i guess you can split those into seperate parts of single texture and use an unwrapper. Sounds promising, though... just wish I had an photoshop handy...... :(
What worries me is that tiled maps cannot be merged, and as most everyone knows most capships have tiled maps. I can think of more than one mod that this will break (my Archangel comes close, as do several of my other mods... and a couple of unreleased things won't work for sure) There has to be a happy medium somewhere, as to not break compatability and not set back a revolutionary upgrade to the graphics engine.
-
My thoughts:
I like the higher details, but I'm a bit nervous about how the texture thing is going to affect the current Volition models. Each LOD of the capships uses what, 7 textures? So long as the same Volition mission will run as well or better with FS2_Open it's great.
And nobody's hit on the core issue here: With higher detail models, you won't NEED that many textures. The purpose of textures is to imply detail. If we can detail/greeble our models to this extent we can just use some fairly generic textures.
Another thing is that we can hope to see some really nice models and maps, depending on the skills of the mapper. Full-hull UVs like the Lucifer would be more efficient in the new engine, instead of the hulks with tiled textures we're used to seeing.
Something we're going to have to worry about here is that 256 color conversion. If we're limiting textures we're going to have to be careful with our palettes.
So, what are the other current advantages with HT&L? Can we use intercepting polies with impunity? How's the lighting? Are glow/shine maps still supported?
-
I was thinking the detail thing... but unfortunately, that would stop me from making models... seeing as I can't do high-poly, greeble stuff...
But it would be cool to put my Anuket in. :drevil: But how are we going to convert such high-poly models? I try and PCS crashes...
-
Originally posted by Raa Tor'h
But how are we going to convert such high-poly models? I try and PCS crashes...
Good point.
Perhaps Bob's going to force us all to use Aurora... in any case, Aurora, Modelview, PCS and quite likely FRED are going to need overhauls to use this technology too.
-
Aurora, doesn't convert, though it is better at editing than it was, I think I fixed the little bug with the mass and stuff
-
I think that it may be a good idea to add a superdetailed lod for external views and tech descriptions renders (the spinning ships). I also know that you can convert up to 6 lods by now, but kazan said that fs2 will use only the first 4, if he's right you probably should enable the two additional lods.
About textures, from what you said it would be good to have the max number possible of polys mapped with the single texture. Now, I was wondering, what if I have a ship with for example 10 textures (few polys of a single ships mapped with same texture), but those textures are shared between many (different)ships at the same moment (a lot of polys from different ships at the same time)?
-
it still won't like it any better, becase it will have to break up each model and set the current texture and render each texture of each model one at a time, and the thing that realy slows down (relitivly) a HT&L system is changeing the current texture, though honestly, even if you make a ship that has 16 diferent texture in 20 diferent subobjects, it's still going to be way faster than it used to be, it just could be even better if you kept this in mind
-
Hmmm. Time to bite the bullet and learn to use Lith methinks :D
Even if I don't need to I want to make more efficient ships so I can have more of them :D
-
So, I don't think I've seen this anywhere: Are the FS2 ships from the Campaign have any issues with this?
-
Originally posted by Styxx
Alternatively, someone could bake textures for all current FS/FS2 ships and reconvert them, and have only a single, really high-res map for each ship. I suppose that would speed things up even further.
huh? and who would redo all the UV mappings? Find somebody who is willing to do that, and do it well, and I send you coockies, real ones :p
-
Originally posted by Venom
huh? and who would redo all the UV mappings? Find somebody who is willing to do that, and do it well, and I send you coockies, real ones :p
YOU!;)
just kidding
-
I said "willing" :p
-
Wonder how many people will actually use this, though..... i mean, I'd like to, but I've already done at least half of the ships for Reci to be within the old limits..........
-
Does this mean we can put more ships in a mission without it crashing as well?
-
Originally posted by LtNarol
Does this mean we can put more ships in a mission without it crashing as well?
I think that may depend on memory limits as much as the rendering engine.....IIRC there's a predefined set limit for ships in a mission. On the other hand, it'd mean you could meet that limit will a lot better performance :)
-
Originally posted by aldo_14
Wonder how many people will actually use this, though..... i mean, I'd like to, but I've already done at least half of the ships for Reci to be within the old limits..........
I'm already building new stuff with this in mind :D
I doubt I'll improve my older models though. It seems like a waste of time to redo old models (Not that I have many to redo!).
Actually while I'm here one more question. Has this upgrade gotten rid of some of the other restrictions like non-flat faces, vertices in a line, irregular shaped polys where you can't draw a line between vertices without leaving the poly?
All of those caused moving textures/holes in FS2. Do they still?
-
erm, could the texture limit per object possibly be bumped to 30 or so? :nervous:
i've checked and i have 4 complex models that break the limit, but they _really_ can't lose any textures, plus they are fully pofed and pathed & tbled for the most part. and i really don't have time to redo them. :(
i am also quite sure these aren't the only ships in the community this would break, although they are probably the ones that are the main secret in many campaigns.
how much of a slowdown would be caused by bumping this limit? and would it only occur only in the missions involving these complex ships, or in any mission with that limit defined in the exe?
other than that, this is simply THE BEST NEWS I HAVE HEARD IN AGES!!!!!!!!!!
:D :eek2: :yes: :eek: :D
*goes off to party*
the SCP has not only gotten off the ground, but it's gotten off the planet and out of the galaxy in coolness terms :D:D:D
-
all models are triangulated durring load, and non flat faces will be fixed there, it actualy would be sort of a good idea to have non flat faces, as this would be a smaller file and load quicker (though the amount by wich it does so would probly be insignifigant)
and unless there are a lot of people who need this raised I'd rather not as it would raise the memory requirements (for storing the actual segments of the ship, not the textures) and there will be a considerable slow down for ships that have too many textures (note, there is a monsterus (were talking 80 foot radioactive reptile here) slowdown in the old rendering code as every poly gets drawen individualy and the texture gets changed every other poly)
but then again, most people's models won't need to be optomised to that level, under no situation will you ever have a model that renders slower in the HT&L engine than the old engine, saying there will be a slowdown is a bit miss leading, it's more like you'd have just slightly less of a speed up
also if you don't want to remake you're old models for this, that's fine thely just render an order of magnatude faster than they used to
-
Great! Wonderful! Thanks for clearing that up, Bobboau.
So, what we have now will run fine. But in the future, don't go berserk on the textures; right? Cool!
Now, back to conversions... what would need to be done to FRED, PCS and ModelView to get them to support these new models?
-
fred, fred might actualy be a problem, didn't even think about fred. not sure, hopefully it'll work :)
PCS kazan needs to look into what his code doese at insainly high poly counts
model view needs to have it's limits raised
-
awesome! :D
*does dance of joy*
*runs off to make high poly stuff*
oh and i bumped modviews limits a while back:
here (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,15019.0.html) if anyone's interested :)
all face and vert limits are somewhere in the 100 000 to the 1 000 000 range IIRC :)
(not sure how well it would run under those conditions tho :nervous: )
-
FRED should be forced to use LOD1, methinks. You'll never see all that detail in FRED and it would help things along significantly.
-
why won't fred use the game engine, anyway?
-
Originally posted by Vasudan Admiral
oh and i bumped modviews limits a while back:
here (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,15019.0.html) if anyone's interested :)
all face and vert limits are somewhere in the 100 000 to the 1 000 000 range IIRC :)
Unfortunately, the link in that other thread goes nowhere. :(
-
anyway, when do we get our hands on a T&L exe?
-
Worked fine for me. I think I'll have to put up my own copy when I next update the FAQ.
Originally posted by Venom
anyway, when do we get our hands on a T&L exe?
I remember you saying you were thinking of moving on cause you'd done about everything you could with the FS2 engine. Is this tempting you to stay then? :D
-
just wanna look at it, maybe I won't get the ****ing "lag+screwed sound" bug with it?
-
Originally posted by Bobboau
I just completed a stress test on the new HT&L engine FSO is useing, and it is at least 6 times as fast, probly more than an order of magnatude, meaning you can now ad at least one more zero to the number of polys to can have on a ship (fighters were about 2-500, now 2-5000, capships were 1-2000 now 1-20000) and expect good frame rates
Holeeeeeee crap!! :eek2:
-
cool, you can make us a super box, now :D
-
You're absolutely right... I mean, think how fast the GTD Cube would go after this :lol:
Seriously though, that's some serious business we're talking about there. This effect should be roughly experienced by any card that supports HT&L?
-
Heh, if my Geforce 2 MX 200/400 (I forget which) can play it, any can. :p
-
... need .... exe.... play.... :D
:yes: :yes:
-
I'm about going to put up my exe, but it was compiled with a corupt lib so I know people are going to get the impression that HT&L is buggy(er than it is) so I'm hopeing someone posts before I'm driven to that extreem
-
Just compile what u have, i like buggy exe's. i get to test my frankenstien systems abilties to its best. just post and PM me whenever your ready to have it tested.
-
a good thing (http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/fs2_open_htl.zip)
someone else compiled it, I am prety sure it's the corect build
there is a problem with the current light management system that will be worked out (in the fullness of time) you will know this when everything in the sceen turns realy bright white and you're frame rate goes to about 4, this is a known bug
-
So in future, ALL ships should be UVmapped like fighters? gotcha
Only thing:
where the hell am I going to find someone willing to setup the UV space and create the maps for a two and a half kilometer long destroyer?
NOTE: Fred, FS2, modelview, etc.. have a limit of 4000 vertices (at the moment) under old system.
Has this been increased as well?
-
Still do as usual for capships, you'll just get a bit less speed increase.
-
So is anyone going to spend the brain cells to re-model all the campaign FS2 ships to take advantage of all the new higher poly limit? ;7
-
[pasted from other thread]
Okay it works sometimes (after about 10-17 crashing tries O.o).
Some things i noticed:
- The thruster thing
- The targetting box render will flicker in various brightnesses
- Sometimes textures go white
- black flickering dots appear sometimes in rotating objects
- any gamma / brightness corrections you apply to your videocard settings will change the gamma / brightness of the game but not of the ships anymore (resulting in very dark ships here)
-
Too be fair, they could do with redoing anyway, as they really were a bit sloppy with their vertice postioning:ick. Quite messy.
Got away with it via trianglelation. Or pure luck.
I'm very tempted to redo the Hades, in both normal destroyer size (2-2.5 km), and super destroyer size (4-5km). The current mesh is a mess, franky.
-
Originally posted by Bobboau
a good thing (http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/fs2_open_htl.zip)
someone else compiled it, I am prety sure it's the corect build
there is a problem with the current light management system that will be worked out (in the fullness of time) you will know this when everything in the sceen turns realy bright white and you're frame rate goes to about 4, this is a known bug
dude... im not blamming you or anything, but as soon as i downloaded the exe, and ran it, my computer started sounding like a Pinto with an engine about to die.... ***imitates engine noises*** Briiiiiiiinnnnnnnn! Brinnnnnn! and then my entire SYSTEM DIED. im @ school right now so im out of the game for a while.... :hopping:
-
Originally posted by Raptor
So in future, ALL ships should be UVmapped like fighters? gotcha
Only thing:
where the hell am I going to find someone willing to setup the UV space and create the maps for a two and a half kilometer long destroyer?
NOTE: Fred, FS2, modelview, etc.. have a limit of 4000 vertices (at the moment) under old system.
Has this been increased as well?
you can unwrap whatever you want even now, and then apply some tile textures, actually it should give you better UV results. The problem is the amount of textures in each subobject. You have to map as much polys of the same object as possible with as less textures as possible.
If I correctly understood (bob, correct me if I'm wrong) each texture added will add a rendering passage: the more textures, the more passages, the less speed.
With big ships it will be surely fair to apply 4-5 basic plating textures, and probably more, but instead of using 20 other maps for small details (windows, hangars, engines, whatever) you will have to collapse them in just one or two big textures, like with fighters.
You still will be able to map your ships in a more traditional way, thought there will probably be a texture number limit, but your ships will not be optimized and the game will not be as fast as it could be (so you will not be able to put uberdetailed models in game w/o killing the performance)
-
ok, I just tried the exe... seems to work quite well, can't say about framerate, didn't look any different to me, but I do have one bug:
(http://www.swooh.com/premium/venom/fs2pics/HTaLbug01.jpg)
See? my fighter is transparent and you can see the frigate debris through the capship's turret :p
I didn't notice that everywhere, but for exemple, all the fighters seemed transparent, and capship debris show through a capship ( but a capship won't show through another capship ). odd.
-
I am having the same problom. I have also had a problem with the game freezing up for a couple of minutes then crashing to the desktop.
-
i got the same issue in the tech room. i could see thru the ships to see its turrets/ etc.... but when i go ingame i crash.
-
Something like this perhaps. (pics @ swooh)
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Angelo/Images/nero/ne01.jpg)
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Angelo/Images/nero/ne02.jpg)
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Angelo/Images/nero/ne03.jpg)
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Angelo/Images/nero/ne04.jpg)
polycount: ~1100.
Not sure, I'll keep that small extrusion (bridge-like thing) to the rear.
-
Venom.. Did those testures come from 3dcafe.com? I think I have them (Purple-white with red stripes)
-
Ryx, been playing HW2 recently? That thing looks extremely Vagyr.
-
Originally posted by StratComm
Ryx, been playing HW2 recently? That thing looks extremely Vagyr.
Homeworld 2 inspired, yes.
hmm... seems I forgot to mention that. :wtf:
-
Was about to say the same thing... Battlecruiser, right?
-
Originally posted by Raa Tor'h
Venom.. Did those testures come from 3dcafe.com? I think I have them (Purple-white with red stripes)
yup, they do. just built an additional map w/o red stripes.
-
Originally posted by SadisticSid
Was about to say the same thing... Battlecruiser, right?
Possibly... I just used a screenshot I saw in a magazine, as a "template".
-
Originally posted by Ryx
Something like this perhaps. (pics @ swooh)
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Angelo/Images/nero/ne01.jpg)
Not sure, I'll keep that small extrusion (bridge-like thing) to the rear.
That thing is really slick. I want to learn how to mod so much! If you need more screen shots of HW2 just ask, I got tons! :cool:
-
*wishes his Truespace skills were better. Curses his triangle*
-
Ryx, can I have a night with that model? Pleeaasssssee?
-
aw, comone, you can put more polys in it than that :)
-
Originally posted by Bobboau
aw, comone, you can put more polys in it than that :)
Ok. More polys. Got it. :D
Originally posted by Knight Templar
Ryx, can I have a night with that model? Pleeaasssssee?
Sure. What file-format?
EDIT: Might as well edit this one...
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Angelo/Images/nero/ne05.jpg)
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Angelo/Images/nero/ne06.jpg)
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Angelo/Images/nero/ne07.jpg)
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Angelo/Images/nero/ne08.jpg)
Polycount... don't know. Forgot to check. Should exceed 1500, though.
-
make sure to use lots of polygons on the parts which are gonna be very shiny, else they'll look crap when the ship is passing through light :)
-
Originally posted by Knight Templar
Ryx, can I have a night with that model? Pleeaasssssee?
Originally posted by Ryx
Sure. What file-format?
Gives a whole new meaning to the term pimping your models :D
-
KT wants it in 3ds form. :) I'll get a copy from him...
*so wishes he could show a pic of the H*******... *
-
Bob, I'm working on a fighter, are you sure the 5K recomendation for fighters will be ok? that seems like an awful lot to me...
-
What Snipes Said. 3ds is supar. :D
-
I just tested a ship with something like 10000 triangles in it, on my (high end) system I got no slowdown at all, though they might not work in that build
-
(http://www.swooh.com/premium/venom/fs2pics/manticorewip.jpg)
lookey :) ( still need to make the bottom and back and other various small areas, btw, you can only see the template right now )
note: 2239 polys for now, no intersecting polys, 1 object
-
Wow...
-
COOL!
ehhawoo!!! (a sound of amased exitement)
;7
btw, what sort of vid card do you have?
that is going to start makeing a big diference
-
radeon 9700.
About the manticore:
I'm obviously not gonna make such a version of all the shivan ships, let alone all the FS2 ships... I think all the good modelers ( Aldo, Ryx, etc ) should give a try at one ship and do the same, would be an interesting project, to upgrade the visuals of FS2 ( yeah, I'm a bit jealous, the coders get all the glory, and we modelers are forgoten :D ).
-
*hopes you all do* We need something like this, if we intend to continue with higher poly ships. Especially if we plan to inter-minggle them with canon ones...
-
9700 should be good enough,
without medelers we wouldn't have anything to make us look good with
many of the ships can probly just have some sort of smoothing effect aplyed to them, I nurbed a persius the other day to great effect
now for some extreem technicalities
currently for one subobject, you can have no more ( :ha: ) than 15000 triangles, this can be changed
you are also limited to 3500 points
and 5500 normals (these both can be changed, especaly the last one)
currently only texture mapped polys are suported
those look like they have some sort fo procedural noise applyed to them, I'm assuming this is just a place holder
there is no limit to polygon count (but there is a limit to triangles)
-
Can you nurb an Anuket for me? Pretty please?
-
Originally posted by Bobboau
9700 should be good enough,
without medelers we wouldn't have anything to make us look good with
many of the ships can probly just have some sort of smoothing effect aplyed to them, I nurbed a persius the other day to great effect
now for some extreem technicalities
currently for one subobject, you can have no more ( :ha: ) than 15000 triangles, this can be changed
you are also limited to 3500 points
and 5500 normals (these both can be changed, especaly the last one)
currently only texture mapped polys are suported
those look like they have some sort fo procedural noise applyed to them, I'm assuming this is just a place holder
there is no limit to polygon count (but there is a limit to triangles)
just as a note: since Max won't allow me to do otherwise, all the polycounts I gave, give or will give, Always, are triangulated count. Face count if you will.
-yup, that's procedural placeholders, altho I can output them as bitmaps easily.
I'm not a great fan of just mesh-smoothing ships: they tend to make the ship thinner, it removes all the hard edges ( of course, you can use weights, but you don't have much control ), plus and mainly, should I say, this won't add new details, just remove visible angles.
Plus for me, as standard, a high detail terran ship ( meant for HT&L - we should find a term for those, it's a pain to have to write the whole explanation every time :p ) must have a glass cockpit, with a visible pilot inside ( like my clipping benchmark valkyrie ), and you'll find it difficult to build one ouf of a meshsmoothed mesh.
-
it makes them look a bit more solid, not realy defending it, but even just for subivideing the surface (giveing better lighting) it's better than nothing.
...
we may want to look into that colision hull thingy we were talking about not to long ago, I'll have to bring that up.
-
Originally posted by Venom
Plus for me, as standard, a high detail terran ship ( meant for HT&L - we should find a term for those, it's a pain to have to write the whole explanation every time :p ) must have a glass cockpit, with a visible pilot inside ( like my clipping benchmark valkyrie ), and you'll find it difficult to build one ouf of a meshsmoothed mesh.
That's going to bugger you up if you're doing the reverse of the FS2 officer exchange program in your campaign :D
Then again you can always simply retexture the cockpit to make it dark again :D
Any chance of releasing the pilot as a seperate object so that every modder doesn't have to make the pilot themselves?
-
Originally posted by Bobboau
we may want to look into that colision hull thingy we were talking about not to long ago, I'll have to bring that up.
well, using the original main lod as the collision hull would be perfect, imo
Originally posted by karajorma
That's going to bugger you up if you're doing the reverse of the FS2 officer exchange program in your campaign :D
Then again you can always simply retexture the cockpit to make it dark again :D
Any chance of releasing the pilot as a seperate object so that every modder doesn't have to make the pilot themselves?
1), 2) what?
3) yeah, that's planed (well, the whole cockpit, actually )
-
He means Vasudans in terran ships and vice versa
-
ah, ok. well I do pilots as submodels, so in theory, I can put both pilots in the same pof, and desactivate one of them in fred, right?
-
you could destoy one of them yes, it might be better if there was some SCP suport for this so you could just select wich one you wanted to use, but I think that would be more trouble than it's worth
-
Originally posted by Bobboau
you could destoy one of them yes, it might be better if there was some SCP suport for this so you could just select wich one you wanted to use, but I think that would be more trouble than it's worth
well, actually, I can see other uses for such an option (chosing subobjects ), like being able to have different turrets on a capship.
-
I made this one, 1222 polys(not stablilized) or 3300 triangles.
I admit it's a bit strange (it came out pretty different than my original idea), btw I don't feel it as completely garbage.
it is intended to be a beam bomber/fighter, with two big warehead launchers and 4 cannons.
Actually I don't have enough time to texture it and things won't change soon, but if Is someone want to test it, make lods and debris, unwrap, convert and pofedit it, I may change idea:p
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/fs2sw/various/test.jpg)
http://members.xoom.it/_ferrarese_/hp3.scn (you will have to copy/paste the link to the address bar..)
-
Originally posted by Venom
I'm not a great fan of just mesh-smoothing ships: they tend to make the ship thinner, it removes all the hard edges ( of course, you can use weights, but you don't have much control ), plus and mainly, should I say, this won't add new details, just remove visible angles.
:wtf: You DO seperate by smoothing groups, right?
And while it won't add detail, meshsmoothing some ships like the Sobek or Serapis is a great start for adding more detail where it counts.
By the way, that Manticore is awesome.
-
KARMA, that thing of yours looks alot more like a new sentry gun. It looks primarily Terran, but the spikes make it look a bit Shivan... perhaps as a new Terran design incorporating the latest in captured Shivan tech. It looks like it could have every kind of weapon mounting from a primary RBC at its centre, AAA on the spike tips, rotating missile banks on either side, and additional gun points near the central cannon.
Venom, I agree... that Manticore is pure gold!
Later!
-
Mmmm Subdivided Anuket... *drools on keyboard*
BZZAAATTT!
-
Bleargh. Death to fishies :p
-
Originally posted by Bobboau
you are also limited to 3500 points
Do you mean that is the maximum number of vertices (in TS) we can have per ship/subobject? :eek: :shaking:
-
Originally posted by Trivial Psychic
KARMA, that thing of yours looks alot more like a new sentry gun. It looks primarily Terran, but the spikes make it look a bit Shivan... perhaps as a new Terran design incorporating the latest in captured Shivan tech. It looks like it could have every kind of weapon mounting from a primary RBC at its centre, AAA on the spike tips, rotating missile banks on either side, and additional gun points near the central cannon.
originally I just wanted to make an high poly thing for tests, and I was following the idea of "a big cannon with engines and a cockpit", this is why it may look like a sentry gun, but it turned out different and worse than what was in my imagination (it looks more like a patchwork of single elements than the result of a complete design), though it isn't completely to trash in my opinion, this is why I posted it, in case someone may like to work a bit with it or use it for tests(it shouldn't take too much to apply a general texture and convert it to pof)
-
Darn KARMA, that, er, ship has made me start doing brand new RBC models....
And Vemon, that looks very good indeedee......:nod:
-
Originally posted by Venom
Bleargh. Death to fishies :p
Screw you :p Filty terran. :drevil:
-
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Angelo/Images/nero/ne09.jpg)
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Angelo/Images/nero/ne10.jpg)
poly: ~1700s
I think, I'll finish off the turrets and stuff and wrap this one up. I never meant for it to exceed 1500-ish.
-
what is that... blue thing...?
-
Who cares. :D
-
Originally posted by Raa Tor'h
Screw you :p Filty terran. :drevil:
whatever, smelly fish :p
wild guess: that blue thing is a turrets body ( tho I hope not ).
-
I tend to base my turrets off WW2 battleships.
Anyway, I can't say I'm overly happy with these, though. I'll have to try again.
-
Originally posted by Ryx
I tend to base my turrets off WW2 battleships.
Anyway, I can't say I'm overly happy with these, though. I'll have to try again.
God, I could so use you over at project x... :sigh:
-
Originally posted by Ryx
I tend to base my turrets off WW2 battleships.
yeah, me too.
-
Originally posted by Ryx
I tend to base my turrets off WW2 battleships.
Anyway, I can't say I'm overly happy with these, though. I'll have to try again.
Ditto, though I kinda like those turrets, personally.
Say Bobboau, is there a limit to the number of polys you can handle? I may just take up your challenge..;7
-
Originally posted by Bobboau
you can now ad at least one more zero to the number of polys to can have on a ship (fighters were about 2-500, now 2-5000, capships were 1-2000 now 1-20000)
-
I was thinking on a per-sobobject basis.....
-
I think it's like 10k per object...
-
Oh, and Bob, if I could get my anuket to convert, I'd try your challenge... with 1024 x 1024 textures, and 9000 polies. Maybe even use the -trans tag on the gas chamber...? :D
-
slightly overboard for a gas miner eh?
screenshot?
-
yeah.
personnally I'd beat down anybody who'd make ships with 10k polys trrets with a wet trout.
-
Originally posted by PhReAk
slightly overboard for a gas miner eh?
screenshot?
I know I have one somewhere... Here:
(http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/us/images/mods/snipes/Image1.jpg)
-
on nurbed models, you have to extract the final mesh (there should be like a brown nurb looking button in the upper right hand portion of the nurb controle box) and when you convert it can take over a minute to convert them
-
I did all that, but PCS crashes... That's my complaint.
-
Originally posted by Venom
yeah.
personnally I'd beat down anybody who'd make ships with 10k polys trrets with a wet trout.
Whats wrong with a 10k turret?
(not that I would ever go THAT high, maybe 1-2k, and that only for barrelled turrets.......)
-
a 10k turret, ok. a capship with, say, 5 10k turrets, hugh. then put 3 of those capships in a mission. HT&L won't make your computer goes faster, obviously :p
-
Originally posted by diamondgeezer
Well... not being funny Bob, I mean this is great work and all, but the whole texture thing worries me somewhat. I mean my carrier had over 60 textures when I'd done with it, and PCS told me where to go. I know that's excessive and probably inefficient use of textures but all the same is there anyway you might tweak this issue to have less of an impact?
had nothing to do with the texture count
BTW: that carrier would never run in game - too many GFX card state changes - can you say slide show
-
Some changes.
Still gotta figure out the turrets... :sigh:
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Angelo/Images/nero/ne11.jpg)
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Angelo/Images/nero/ne12.jpg)
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Angelo/Images/nero/ne13.jpg)
-
bleh.
*liked the first version better. It looks like you brought it with you to Thanksgiving dinner.
-
I don't like there little nose on it, looked better when it just had a flat virticle face, but some details there would defenantly be a good thing
-
I like the copy I have... All textured ans shinemapped...
-
Someone wants us to hate him :p
-
maybe I should start talking about how fun it is to use PCS to make cool looking things
-
Who needs PCS? Looky what I did. :)
(http://nodewar.penguinbomb.com/aotd/Raa/screen00.jpg)
It'sa gunna be in AotD... after a retexture job. (And if I can figure out how I fux0red the turrets...)
-
well, the spec maps are severly fux0red, man. Missing smooth groups?
-
PCS doesn't work on my PC, so yeah, no smoothing groups...
It's probably why the turrets don't work, too, but that's another issue.
-
cob2pof has smoothing in it, bTW - it had it ages before PCS did, it just took Venom / Nico ages to convince Kazan of that.
The map setting sare different, though. IIRC in PCs you need to set the maps (in TS) to 'autofacet', but in cob2pof the maps were 'smooth' type.
-
Well, I got PCS with the Facet build to convert cobs to pofs, but the facet build isn't smoothing. I wonder why.
-
Originally posted by aldo_14
cob2pof has smoothing in it, bTW - it had it ages before PCS did, it just took Venom / Nico ages to convince Kazan of that.
heh, yeah, I remember that :)
-
Originally posted by Raa Tor'h
Well, I got PCS with the Facet build to convert cobs to pofs, but the facet build isn't smoothing. I wonder why.
Check your hierarchy to make sure that the main hull isn't being treated in the same way as the turrets - that can happen if you have lights glued the wrong way or summat.
Um... otherwise, make sure the maps are on 'AutoFacet', not Faceted......very easy mistake to make. Or maybe it;s just being wierd.....
-
Well, that Ryx cruiser thingy converted smoothed, but the turrets don't work.
The Vasudan ships didn't smooth though. I'll have to look at them.
And thanks for the info, although I've already learned the placement of lights the hard way. ;) :nod:
-
Originally posted by Raa Tor'h
Who needs PCS? Looky what I did. :)
*PIC removed*
It'sa gunna be in AotD... after a retexture job. (And if I can figure out how I fux0red the turrets...)
Spiffy! :)
-
Turrets & lod / debris subobjects don't smooth atall, actually - even on the V models IIRC. Possibly simply to save drawing/rendering time by not doing the shading algorithm (most turrets are only a few faces, and the lod / debris aren't seen at close enough range to notice the change in lighting, etc)
-
uhm, yeah they do...
-
Originally posted by aldo_14
Turrets & lod / debris subobjects don't smooth atall, actually - even on the V models IIRC. Possibly simply to save drawing/rendering time by not doing the shading algorithm (most turrets are only a few faces, and the lod / debris aren't seen at close enough range to notice the change in lighting, etc)
:blah:
Are you sure? I was almost certain they smoothed too.
-
I know for a fact that they do, all models use the same rendering method
-
Er...yeah..... you're right. Should probably wait till i can get home & check before I type stuff like that........
Although every PCS converted model I have has wierd smoothing on the lower lods and turrets, and I'm positive I make sure the maps are smoothed on those.....I'm a bit confused now.
Bugger.
-
when looking at it in game, or in model view?
-
Modelview. I can understand it if I forgot to do the turrets, but i'm sure I did the LOD smoothing....
-
Anyone have any good tips on how to model turrets (with barrels). Should the barrels be seperate objects, or do I do a boolean union or...?
-
You can join the barrels with a Boolean Union, but don't join them to the casing. It really doesn't matter that much, if the heirarchy is set up correctly for conversion.
-
If you make each barrell seperate, just make sure you have the three objects glued together, and as a subgroup (with one light only) of the base. And it should work. I made 2-part turrets into one parters this way for my/aldo's Suaria destroyer/corvette.
-
actualy if there are more than one objects, you don't need the light
-
ok, Thanks :)
-
Ryx, Keep making models like this, and I'll join your fan club. ;7
Smooth Shaded and working turrets. :D
(http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/qm/pub/snipes/ryx2.jpg)
-
ARE YOU GOING TO release IT.
-
Actually, It's being reskinned and put in AotD, as far as I know...
But if he makes a few more high caliber models like that, I may get them FS-worthy... :)
-
Originally posted by Raa Tor'h
....
But if he makes a few more high caliber models like that, I may get them FS-worthy... :)
I shall endeavor to do so.
Also, If you don't like the name of the ship (as I generally just name them something), change it. Just mention it in the credits file that you changed it. :)
-
just to let you know, (so to avoid working on the same thing at the same time with others) I started an high poly fenris (IIRC cruiser01.pof), wich is turning out pretty good. I'm not going to texture she, but althought minor modifications, I think that a good unwrapper will/should be able to map 99% of the ship with the old original maps
btw.....
I browsed other times on sparky archive, but I really never noticed before the pirate ship! :)
lol, we should make a fleet with stuff like this ship eheh
-
Originally posted by Ryx
I shall endeavor to do so.
Sweet. :D
Also Originally posted by Ryx
Also, If you don't like the name of the ship (as I generally just name them something), change it. Just mention it in the credits file that you changed it. :)
What was the name of this vessel? I'm sure KT won't object to having the ship class named whatever it is, since it's individual names of each vessel that are memorable.
-
I'm calling it "Nero". It's not really a name for the ship/class, but more of a way to seperate it out from the next mesh.
Ok, that was a bit redundant. :D
-
I can't garauntee names will stay the same, but credit will always be shown where credit is due. :)
-
what's the polycount limit again? i.e. whould a 5000+ poly main hull be excessive?
-
Originally posted by aldo_14
what's the polycount limit again? i.e. whould a 5000+ poly main hull be excessive?
You should be safe with that. Check earlier in the thread.
Anyways...
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Angelo/Images/nero/ne14.jpg)
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Angelo/Images/nero/ne15.jpg)
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Angelo/Images/nero/ne16.jpg)
(http://www.swooh.com/peon/Angelo/Images/nero/ne17.jpg)
-
I don't like the bumpout on the nose, but the rest is killer. That turret model is amazing.
-
Hey Snipes, we should do that instead of the wing platofrms on the sides :D
-
some wip shots of the high poly fenris I'm making:) :
the top:
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/swfs2/wips/fenris.jpg)
the bottom:
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/swfs2/wips/fenris2.jpg)
the front:
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/swfs2/wips/fenris3.jpg)
2100 triangles so far, I expect to finish around 6k triangles
-
Love it :yes:
-
Wicked!! You gonna give it any small turret guns on the level surfaces (top and/or bottom)? It would probably improve the ship's field of fire. Come to think of it, a returret like that might be better suited to the Leviathan than the Fenris, so we can finally give the stronger of the two some more lethal looking teeth.
Later!
-
howah!... cool!
-
OMG!!!
That's awsome! I can't wait to see it fininshed.
If we had an Orion redone like that (the same basic shape) with details like that everyone would love the old purple oddity.
-
try to round some of the edges a bit, else than that, the front is looking great so far :D
-
On the contrary, leave her blocky! This is a Fenris, after all, in the same general line of spacecraft as the Orion. I can't wait to see that across the whole hull, it looks awesome!
-
I'm not going to make big changes to the design (like rounding some edges) for a simple reason: I don't want to texture she.
I don't have time to draw new textures, and the original ones are already pretty good, so I'm trying to create a ship that could be mapped (by others:p) using almost the original :v: textures.
The basic mesh is pretty close to the the original model, I'm making it from scratch only because the original geometry suck.
If I was going to draw new textures from scratch, then I would have made a lot of differences to the design.
If possible, I'd also like someone to make her turretts, so to be able to return to SW models as soon as possible:)
-
Are you refuring to the conventional spot-on-hull turrets of the original, or the deck-gun style turrets of my suggestion?
Just hoping....
Later!
-
Originally posted by KARMA
I'm not going to make big changes to the design (like rounding some edges) for a simple reason: I don't want to texture she.
I don't have time to draw new textures, and the original ones are already pretty good, so I'm trying to create a ship that could be mapped (by others:p) using almost the original :v: textures.
Heck, dont let that stop you :)
That thing will look ugly with the standard textures anyway.
-
<-------needs to get a CPU or graphics card that can run FS2 so that he can see high-poly stuff
*goes to get his jaw from wherever it fell off as well*
Superb stuff this! :D
-
The latest FS SCP build deserves much respect and admiration folks. I just converted and successfully integrated a 14,000 polygon Sovereign Class starship modeled by ChonicalGuy from the Bridge Commander Modding community. His Uber model contained high resolution textures that peak at 4096x2048 resolution. Those uber textures KILLED the Bridge Commander Engine into a slideshow of 1-2 FPS. Freespace SCP dished out 40!
I got pictures of this amazing feat at this BridgeCommander Forum:
http://dynamic3.gamespy.com/~bridgecommander/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=204780#204780
-
Nice :cool:
-
tell them about the free FS2 download on the underdogs and about Fractux' full install, and about the custom VPs, and about the SCP website, and about the media VPs, and about the cool implemented features, and about... :D
Freespace2 SCP > anything you might come up with
-
omniscaper, if you want smoothing, you have to go for autofacet with higher angle setted in truespace, and use the PCS version provided by Bobbau in one of posts below. And the game now support animated textures, in ani format, not sure about avi
btw that sovereign shots are incredible:)
-
:eek: 15,000 polies... 4096x2048 textures... 40 fps...
What the hell kind of hardware are you running this on?!
-
Hey Karma, Truespace is still fairly new to me. I just recently in the last 3 days picked it up. I am more of a Lightwave and 3dsmax veteran. Whoever designed that interface needs to go to the timeout room, it is horrific.
I am using PCS 1.34 I believe. Where are you folks getting these utitilties. I have to search far and wide through Google and Yahoo, in order to find these programs. I need to know where to get the latest releases and a more detailed explanation of the functions necessary to produce a clean conversion from the Bridge Commander Models.
Where in Truespace would I find Autofacet? I had always thought the smoothing is taken cared of, or actually ignored, by the PCS.
My System Specs:
P4 2.6ghz Xeon (single)
Supermicro x5dal-g
1gb pc2100 DDR ram
(A competent) Ati Radeon 9500pro 128ddr
Audigy 2 Soundcard
60gb Western Digital (slow 5400RPM)
I'm surprised the Ati 9500 was able to handle those textures exceedingly well. I could only imagine what the new 9800X could do.
-
if he is manageing to convert the model he is probly useing the PCS build I linked to (the facet build), unless Kazan updated his build, truespace defalts to auto-facet angle of 32 degrees, there are 3 shadeing options in TS, facet(), auto-facet, and smooth, the facet build of PCS (short for auto-facet, yes that is somewhat confuseing) is setup to use auto-faceting corectly, all other versions did it wrong, however from the shots it looks like there may actualy be an internal FSO problem, we've never actualy had a model of that complexity in game yet so there may be some problems,
but damn if that isn't an amazeing sight!
-
well, TS is pretty different, from what I've heard, than Lightwave or max, people love it or hate it, personally I like the interface, and I use only TS6, but many people coming from those other modelling programs usually find it confusing.
Just remember that you can access to hidden tools options with right click on many icons, like for the autofacet angle, and there are other menus that will pop-up only under certain conditions: for example, the point edit tools will pop-up only if you enter in point-edit mode, activating one of the face/edges/vertices selection tools.
The autofacet is in the material editor menu, an icon on the bottom left, but since its position changed in the different versions, I can't tell you its exact position in your version.
Once you activate the material editor menu, the facet/autofacet/smoothing option is one of the small icons on the left. Facet will give no smoothing at all, autofacet will use a defined angle (right click on the icon to change angle) for the smoothing, smoothing doesn't work with PCS.
You will need the version of PCS with custom autofacet angle enabled: it will use the angle you defined in Truespace. check here: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,18798.0.html
about your model... fso can handle almost any texture size, but as long as it is supported by users' GPUs, and I don't know how many card can use those giant maps.
Also remember (as I said on the other thread) to optimize your model for the game engine: the HT&L system should work faster if if you use as less subobjects possible and as less textures possible on each subobject.
eheh:) the first time I misunderstood you, thinking that the overall resolution of all the textures was 4096x2048, not that EACH texture was of this size....how many textures of them, btw?
well depending by their number, it is probably a bit too much, and you may want to use for example the baking tools of lightwave to reduce the textures without loosing quality, obtaining a better balance between speed and quality
-
I'm willing to settle for some glitchy shading, as long as the ship is working. But if you could give some more tips on the proper shading to use with the facet version of PCS, it would be a great help. Where exactly in the chaos of an interface is that option?
So far the only way I could keep the model, without reduction, to convert and play properly, I had to link EVERY independent object with a light. The sovereign has 14 independent objects when I exported it to Truespace. When I export the model from 3dsmax as a single object, it would crash Freespace if not PCS. This method allowed me to use the models untouched in their 12k-15k glory. Should I physically connect all independent objects with their vertices in order to truelly make it a single mesh for it to work better?
I'm still trying to get those turrets to work right. Do "paths" have somethin to do with Beam weapons? I don't recall seeing FOV settings in the turret tab of PCS(faceted). I must be blind. I already set the normals to extend a good 200 meters out, but I'm not sure I'm using "normals" correctly. I figured normals tell the firing point where to search for its target. I noticed though in the stock pof's that "paths" are somehow linked to turrets. I'm fearing its this oversight is the cause for the beam weapons not working.
-
Oooh. Ryx, can I have a copy of your latest mesh? To play with in game...? :D
-
Unfortunately, UV unwrapping is still a new course for me to learn , which is a slow process. The models I use range from 6-8 maps ranging from 512x512 to 4096x2048. The models seem way to complex for it to use only less than 5 maps.
If I were to re mapp them using only 3-5 maps, I'll lose CONSIDERABLE detail. I'd like to keep its detail considering that ships can fly up close to it. I don't wanna see blurry madness. I'll gladly accept texture tearing which is due to either too many maps or faulty smoothing, which is evident in many of the pictures I've posted. I prefer detail over graphic flawlessness.
In terms of the model's optimization for HT&L, 3dsmax shows the models already trianglated. I never see quads which I'm guessing is the result of Milkshape's middleman role in retrieving the Bridge Commander models and exporting it to 3dsmax. If only milkshape could directly export to COB, which it doesn't. I'll see if the Bridge Commander folks know of better translators.
-
as said, I don't know where the material editor is in your TS version, but it shouls be around the bottom left of the screen....just check the icons....this is the aspect of the material editor menu: xoomer.virgilio.it/svfferra/fxmod/img/snap168.jpg (copy/paste the link), the shading options are on the left, the second small icon from the bottom: select autofacet, right click to define the angle, reapply the material, check the differences and choose the best angle.
For the turretts I can't say more than what is written in the tutorials (check karajoma's FAQ, the link is on his signature)
For the subobject... LODs, shields, destroyable objects, destroyed versions of objects, debris, turretts, rotating parts must be separated objects.
Examples of hierachy for those objects are present on Bobboau's tutorial about PCS: check his sign.
All the other objects should be on the same layer to have better speed results.
You can connect manually all the subobjects (actually it will give the best result, since intersections may cause collision detection problems), but you can also just merge all the subobjects on the same layer.
There isn't an easy way, in truespace you can for example select a subobject, change it's position so that it doesn't intersect the main hull, use boolean unify to create a single object, select the subobject (by selecting its faces), move the subobject back to its original position.
I think it should be possible to use a different file format to automerge all the subobject, like DXF, unfortunately DXF doesn't retail uvcoordinates, I don't know if there are other formats wich could be used.
About the number of textures...considering the size of a star trek ship and its complexity, in my opinion 6-8 textures of 1024x1024 each would be probably more than enough, without loosing much details
-
I'm using truespace 6.5. Will creating a single complete mesh version allow PCS to convert without crashing? So far the light grouping method had solved ALL my crash problems. I now know that FS-SCP can handle 14k+ objects, and that single high poly models that I tweak out Bridge Commander kept crashing. Then again I didn't link every vertice where the original seperate objects met. Are you suggesting that I do major stitching before trying PCS?
-
it could take some minutes for PCS to finish converting a mesh, expecially when it is so complex.
try to leave it working for sometimes, I remember I converted a 10k poly ship in around 6-7 minutes....
-
yes a model of that complexity will take a LONG LONG time to convert, PCS will just sit therer for a few minutes thinking about all the polygons and there relation to each other
-
If that is the case, why is the light grouping method I used speeding up conversion times? From 2 4 minutes to 20 seconds for a 13k model.
-
becase they are in seperate subobjects, and PCS is makeing 16 BSP trees of 800 polys rather than one of 13,000, it's a lot easier to think about 16 groups of 800 than one group of 13.000. the big problem is that the game is going to render those 16 groupes seperately rather than in one go wich is were HT&L gets all of it's speed from.
-
Originally posted by Omniscaper
I'm still trying to get those turrets to work right. Do "paths" have somethin to do with Beam weapons? I don't recall seeing FOV settings in the turret tab of PCS(faceted). I must be blind. I already set the normals to extend a good 200 meters out, but I'm not sure I'm using "normals" correctly. I figured normals tell the firing point where to search for its target. I noticed though in the stock pof's that "paths" are somehow linked to turrets. I'm fearing its this oversight is the cause for the beam weapons not working.
The later part of my FAQ was written for modelview in addition to PCS because I prefer working in it whenever possible. Unfortunately Modelview seems to crash whenever dealing with HTL models so you're stuck with PCS until Kazan finishes his new program.
The FOV settings can be found on the Subobjects tab in PCS. Even though the FAQ is designed for modelview it should help some.
-
Originally posted by Bobboau
becase they are in seperate subobjects, and PCS is makeing 16 BSP trees of 800 polys rather than one of 13,000, it's a lot easier to think about 16 groups of 800 than one group of 13.000. the big problem is that the game is going to render those 16 groupes seperately rather than in one go wich is were HT&L gets all of it's speed from.
Bob, but if I glue two objects together, instead of with a light for each one, will PCS consider them as two objects or as only one?
I mean:
---geo1
---geo2
---geox
---light
-------detail1
etc, etc...
this is pretty important because, as you know, I have to deal sometimes with models sliced in many pieces, and this way would be many times faster
-
if it converts faster it's probly makeing seperate subobjects, if you arn't sure just look at the final pof if it has more subobjects then it's getting broken down into seperate subobjects wich will slow the HTL engine down a bit
-
Originally posted by Raa Tor'h
Oooh. Ryx, can I have a copy of your latest mesh? To play with in game...? :D
Sure :)
Grab. (http://w1.520.telia.com/~u52019066/nerov2.3DS)
-
I just glued together 2 cubes, without any light, and converted to pof.
---group
------cube1
------cube2
PCS say 1 group, 0 lights, 2 polygroups
modelview see the two cubes as one single subobject (lod0)
I also converted back from pof to cob, as result PCS generated a single object out of the two cubes, with this result:
---freespace model
------noname
------light
I suppose this mean that all the meshes placed at the same hierachy level not glued each one with its ownlight will be considered by the HTL engine as one single object, and rendered together, right?
this is pretty important and useful, for me at least:)
-
Originally posted by Ryx
Sure :)
Grab. (http://w1.520.telia.com/~u52019066/nerov2.3DS)
Sweet. Trashman's goping to hate me, but this is going to further delay his Orion being done... :p
J/k Trashman... I'll do it soon, but it's harder to tex than a ship like this...
-
I figured out that the Galaxy ship, can convert as a single mesh as long as all the vertices are aligned and that no intersections occur. It was a toughy to take a model composed of 10+ parts and stitch them into one mesh. Many of the objects seems to have been created apart from the super structure. Those objects HAD TO BECOME subobjects. I figured out that all the crashes I've been having with conversion or Freespace seems to stem from the fact that if a ship, which is treated as a "single" mesh, contains any form of polygon or vertex intersection, crashes the game if not PCS.
I did a test with a number of joined parts and created a single mesh. The texture tearing artifacts disappeared from the model and the frame rate is a little improved.... probably +5. Its negligable to the framerate I was getting when ALL parts of the Galaxy were subobjects.
I'm optimizing the model right now to have as much joinable parts connected. The others I am forced to treat as a subobjects. For the sake of getting the most out of HT&L I guess.
-
Hey Bobboau, what do you suppose is the best angle to set autofacet to? I left it at the default of 90. I'm still not too thrilled with PCS as compared to "Cob2fs2"'s uber smoothness. The Galaxy is a smooth ship. I'd like to get as smooth as possible.
-
Originally posted by Omniscaper
I figured out that the Galaxy ship, can convert as a single mesh as long as all the vertices are aligned and that no intersections occur. It was a toughy to take a model composed of 10+ parts and stitch them into one mesh. Many of the objects seems to have been created apart from the super structure. Those objects HAD TO BECOME subobjects. I figured out that all the crashes I've been having with conversion or Freespace seems to stem from the fact that if a ship, which is treated as a "single" mesh, contains any form of polygon or vertex intersection, crashes the game if not PCS.
mm that's strange, let's hear bob's response:)
-
if 90 isn't smooth enough (wich I think it should be) just crank it up to 120 or something.
as far as that crashing issue, I havn't realy heard of that sort of problem, but that does sort of make sence given that the POF data structure holds geometry in a BSP tree.
-
I'm ready to hand over this model to someone. I am now COMPLETELY frustrated with this "hierchial" system of Truespace. I'm not even exactly sure how a ship should be PROPERLY grouped. The tutorials are a bit vague. There are too many variables with porting over a model that those tutorials do not cover. Mods within mods which use mods. I need sleep now. A week of modding in circles. I'll stick with the model porting. I'll glady email whoever wants the model so long as I get a copy of the final POF with all the trimmings such as working Beam weapons (a problem as well for me).
-
>=(
>=(
-
hierachy examples:
http://underworld.fortunecity.com/pacman/106/fs2mods/shipcreationguide/convertingyourmodelusingtsandpcs.html
http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/fstut/PCS_auto-gen.htm
http://underworld.fortunecity.com/pacman/106/fs2mods/shipcreationguide/appendices.html
-
why don't you post a picture of your hierarchy
-
Originally posted by Bobboau
as far as that crashing issue, I havn't realy heard of that sort of problem, but that does sort of make sence given that the POF data structure holds geometry in a BSP tree.
btw...
this means that if I have an high poly mesh with many intersections, even if it appear to work flawlessy in game, it may cause the game to crash after a certain amount of time if there are more of those model at the same time?
-
I'm no longer in Truespace but I'm blaming the turret problem on it. I grouped and centered the lights to every turret subobject, which the axis centered on the subbject, yet I still can't target all of them in game. All the turrets appear in PCS. Is there a turret number limit? I'm guess the problem lies in the hierarchy.
-
Is the table set up to define all of them properly? That sounds like a table issue rather than a model one.
-
All turrets accounted for in the TBL. All 34 turetts. They all fire, but i cannot target them all. Much of them are firing THROUGH the ship as well. I set all their FOV to 45, but is the FOV setting relative to each turret's axis?
-
Truespace just crashed and KILLED ALL my grouping effort. I managed to convert to POF before the incident. Truespace crashed and when I reopened my file all the subobjects and lights were ALL OVER THE PLACE.
-
Yeah truespace can be a pain like that sometimes. Save often, and rotate your files so you can roll back to an earlier state if something goes wrong. I've got a new question though... if modelview shows your model, what happens when you select a turret in NON-edit mode? Does the whole model dissapear or is the turret still visable? It may be a high-poly thing, but it sounds like something is seriously FUBAR'd with the game or the model.
-
Model view SO does not like anything with more than 5k. I can only get the LOD version of the Galaxy to work. But you should see the entire model
-
You need to talk to Vasudan Admiral, he's uprated the ModelView wource code to accept a lot more polys, though it is still slightly limited by the number of UV Co-ords it can handle :)
Flipside :D
-
FINISHED! All Turrets fire properly, Subsystems incorporated and none of the turrrets shoot THROUGH the ship. I set all turret FOV's to 100. Silly oversight of light size and placement has been fixed. I rearranged the hierarchy so that all turrets are directly under the main object and not under its own sub-subgroup which I arranged previously so that all 34 turrets would not be so cluttered. The only problem is that I can see laser bolts through the ship. I don't know if its SCP build issue.
How do I get this ship to fire beam weapons. I changed the gun type in the TBL but this ship refuses to use them and gets pounded. Which is the best gun type use anyways?
-
beam free alll
yes the seeing lasers through the ship is an engine issue, it hassn't shown as being a big enough problem to warent our fixing it yet
-
Beam free all? Is that a TBL command? Which gun type should I use that will come close to red phasers?
Wanna see the Galaxy exploding?
http://dynamic3.gamespy.com/~bridgecommander/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=209800
-
it's a sExp, one wich must be called on each ship wanting to use beams
-
Well.. one out of two isn't too bad.
-
Let beams SPEW!!! Thank you Bobboau.
Now I just made a model of a photon torpedo. What is the best way to make the the model glow red. For now I'm trying to modify a cyclops torpedo.
-
you could make a glow map, give it a glow point, or just give it a huge thruster glow
-
I just used the specs for the cyclops minus the trails and engine glows. I put a GLOW point on it instead. The glow seems to work but a bit off in alignment, despite the fact that glow location is in absolute zero as well as the object center.
Can Glow maps be animated? I've tried replacing the pcx with an ANI but it just doesn't. ANI specs are 15fps 256 colors 50 frames.
-
it loads the pcx if it finds it first,
and glow points are haveing some issues at the moment, I'm not sure if it's going to get fixed befor the next relese, but it will get fixed eventualy
-
I am optimizing the Sovereign Class model now and I'd like to know if its ok to leave the mesh as multiple objects. I booleaned all the seperate parts together and the polyon count nearly tripled. "Chronocidal_Guy" modeled the parts seperately and the vertices do not align with each other. Would it be better for the HT&L to handle a ship with multiple objects rather than a single mesh with 3x the polygons? It went from 12k to 19k
I have a shot of the segmented model as shown in the bottom of this forum:
http://dynamic3.gamespy.com/~bridgecommander/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=203105#203105
In regard to the animated textures, I have not tried it on model textures, but I know that the GLOW texture refuses to accept ANI's, only stills.
-
just put the objects into a single abstract groupe, glue them together, don't make them into seperate subobjects (i.e. glue a light to each part then glue those together)
-
Originally posted by Omniscaper
In regard to the animated textures, I have not tried it on model textures, but I know that the GLOW texture refuses to accept ANI's, only stills.
The Glow option is for glowpoints not glowmaps so there isn't really that much need for animation there as you can already blink glowmaps the way you like anyway.
You'd achieve the glow you want there by moving the texture around instead.
-
If I understand your instructions correctly, my first successfull conversion (the ones in picture) was correct.
My hierarchy:
Sov
...Part A
......Saucer
......Light
...Part B
......Secondary Hull
......Light
...Part C
......Nacelles
......Light
...Part D
......Bridge
......Light
...Turret01
......Turret A
......Turret01-FP (light)
etc....
Should I put the parts as siblings to the turrets? The original hirarchy did not have any other major groups.
-
My goal with the Photon torpedoes is to use the model I made and make the glow animated like in the movies. Just rotating the still pcx (if possible) looks cheesy.
I made an ANI animation that is 256x256, 256colors, 15fps, and 60frames. The animation looks like an actual photon torpedo.
Using that animation, the alternative is to do away with the model and just create an animated sprite (if possible). Or texture a sphere in away that the texture is always facing you.
-
do this:
Sov
......Saucer
......Secondary Hull
......Nacelles
......Bridge
......(light) (it should work even without light)
......Turret01
.............Turret A
.............Turret01-FP (light)
if you want for example the nascelles destroyable, you may want a destroyed version of the nascelles (not necessary, but it will look crap if they just disappear when destroyed), and they will have to be placed as a separate group, like turret01
-
The problem with doing it that way, is that the model would not convert or crash the game because much of the parts (nacelles, bridge,etc) intersect with an underlying structure. Intersection = crash or no convert. I had to make every "Part" grouped with a light to make it a subobject in order for it to convert and be playable. I'm trying to find a way to get rid of the intersections via boolean subtraction, but it will be a long process of cut and paste.
-
put the cob up in a zip somewere so we can try converting it
-
remember that this way it will take much more to convert. Even if PCS seem crashing, just let it work for a while, don't give up before...mmmm....10 minutes....
For the game crashing, there may be many reasons: if the single group pof crash it, and the multigroup pof doesn't, this reduce the range of possibilities, and will help the coders finding reason/solution
-
At this point, I had already forgoton the NUMEROUS combinations of hierarchy that i've tried. But aside from hierarchy, I know for a fact, from deduction, that any "element" (3dsmax term, a select group of polygons which in this case make up part of the object like nacelle casing) that intersects with another element within a single object, crashes PCS or Freespace.
So I have to detach that element, and make it its own object. Those intersecting elements as well as other objects which I cannot seamlessly attach (vertex-wise) to the super-structure become seperate objects. In Truespace, these seperate objects are glued with a light and then glued to the main object. Same way turrets are attached.
-
My latest Galaxy hierarchy which is works flawlessly:
Galaxy Class
---Galaxy
------Nacelles
----------Nacelle
----------Bussard
----------Blue Coil
------Impulse Engine
----------Impulse Engine
----------Light
------Bridge
----------Bridge
----------Light
------Turret01
----------Phaser1
----------Turret01-fp
etc...... more turrets up to 34.
I'd like to keep the turrets more tidy by making subgroups seperating the turrets of a particular Phaser arc from the other arcs. Like:
Galaxy Class
---Galaxy
------Phasers
----------Saucer Upper Arc
--------------Turret01
------------------Phaser1
------------------Turret01-fp
--------------Turret02
------------------Phaser2
------------------Turret02-fp
etc...
I found that by making subgroups with the turrets make many of the turrets untargetable.
-
OK folks, I just played the newest space sim X2-The Threat. I have to say, she is quite a beauty. It looks like a Directx9 version of Freespace2 with cockpits.
Shes got HT&L, bump-mapping, speculars, glow, and the most impressive effect, shadows with self-shadowing (Please SCP, explore incorporating those in Freespace) Shes even got localized nebulas and inter system jumping. Of course I decided to give my computer a shakedown, and put all graphics to its highest without antialiasing..... X2 makes quite a beautiful slideshow on my radeon 9500pro. Even with effects at medium, 25 FPS was the best I could do. I dont even want to attempt antialiasing.
I've yet to dive into the game fully which includes eventual capitol ship fleet control and RTS elements, but the game falls short in physics and handling. Inertia seems none existant. You stop and turn at a dime. Freespace has it beat in this realm immensely.
Shes quite a pretty site, but like a number girls I've dated, the beauty came without a brain. As a space shooter, it feels WRONG.
I have complete faith that FS@:SCP will eventually get to the Directx9 state with most of the trimmings. Freespace, in my opinion, still got it beat, despite X2's diverse gameplay offerings. At the current state of FS2:SCP's graphics, it holds its own without all the graphics icing. Go team!!! No "Threat" here!
-
the point is not that FSO has to better than other actual studio quality games (who said halflife2?:p)..that's impossible..we can't compare (on the graphic side) FSO to recent games, for obvious reasons.
The point is that FSO WILL be better, one day or the other, than actual games, for the simple reasons that it is an in-development project, and therefore it is in continue evolution:)
(ps: you can already jump between systems in FSO...in a certain way...)
now, about your galaxy: I don't say I don't believe you, but I converted recently a 10k polys ships with the weirdest intersections you can imagine, placing al the objects (40..) all in the same layer.
It took a lot to convert with PCS, but it got converted, and the game never crashed (but I haven't made some stress tests like you, placing 3 or for of those ships in game, I just placed 2 of em and looked at the results)
If you are having problems converting the model or if the model is crashing the game, then there is something strange, that MUST be analyzed, since it could be important.
Just find an FTP space and upload your files, I'm sure Bob (and others) will be interested in it, since such an high poly model is an excellent test for FSO, and the fact that it is crashing the game may be important to show some of its limits.
-
Who do I give the kulprit model to, for analysis? And how should I deliver it?
-
upload somewhere and post the link
-
Upload where, I'm still new to any form of file hosting. Normally I would assume I would give it to the forum admins to distribute. I'd actually would like to get the Galaxy model up for the public to try out. I just don't know how. Give me a link where I can upload files to, free preferably. Yahoo is the only place I have anyform of membership asside from forums.
-
there are hundreds if not thousands of free web hosting services. From geocities to fortunecity to angelfire, etcetc.
just choose one, you don't need a pro hosting service to just share files
I also think there is a guy in this community offering free ftp space too.
-
his nick is stealth, send him a PM and express your problem and needs, maybe he can help you
-
you can also try an0n, though he has been known to replace files of people he doesn't like with gay porn
-
Originally posted by Bobboau
you can also try an0n, though he has been known to replace files of people he doesn't like with gay porn
really?????
ohhhhh this explain a thing that happened some months ago :drevil:
-
Be it not ours to reason why anon has a (presumably large) collection of gay porn to use for this............
-
well many months ago, one posted a screenshots in the SW public forum, but after some days, being a moderator, I received a message from an user advising me of something wrong with it...well I was a bit shocked when I saw a gay porn image.instead of the ingame screenshot I remembered:)
I also noticed that the image was from a public image depot, so I supposed that it wasn't fault of the poster, and now I got confirm of this:)
-
the baby is growing....
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/swfs2/wips/cruiser1.jpg)
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/swfs2/wips/cruiser2.jpg)
it is around 6700 polys so far, but there are many edges that I have to clean, so I think I'm around 6500.
It is a bit high: with this level of detail, I doubt I'll finish with less than 9k polys.
I have 3 ways then:
1-I leave it as it will be, no matter the final pcount
2-I cut some details
3-I try to make all the small extrusions disconnected from the main hull (like if they intersect), but still being the same object: removing all the connecting edges, I could save an huge amount of polys, I think around 1-2k from the final pcount.
-
Very cool. :cool: :yes:
-
man... you're making a high poly ship there... for renders, not for real time. HT&L is cool and stuff, but it's not magic, it doesn't turn an old pentium 800 into a dual proc.
Gotta get realistic there, methinks.
-
i agree with nico....having 2 of those in game would lag my 1600 CPU out the window.....
-
I think it can handle it
-
yeah. two fenris. than someone will do the same for the herc2, the orion, the deimos, etc. Now let see if you'll be able to play a mission with all the ships in it at that level of detail...
You realize he's not half through the ship, right? That'll be at least 12k polys for a cruiser.
-
well, it is surely coming overpoly than my original plans, but the original intention was of a ship of already 6-8k triangles.
I'm at 6500 triangles right now, and when I'll finish I'll try to step back to the planned 6-8k somehow.
I admit I still have to understand the true limits of HT&L, but from what I've understood, 6-8k for a fenris should be pretty good.
or not?
-
To me, 5K polys for a capship should be the grand maximum. That's still way over the limit used for todays retail games, the most detailled ships in FL swing around 2500 polys, I think.
-
eh, we can do better
-
They can too, they don't limit the polycount because they suck at modelling, obviously. But see, if missions are limited to 10 ships at a time coz of the polycount, that'd suck, and I wouldn't use such high poly ships.
-
well from bob's early tests with nonoptimized ships you could expect far higher framerates than vanilla fs2, he was talking about multiplying the original pcounts by ten times... the original fenris is 500 polys, 6-8k polys mean therefore a bit overpoly ship, but probably not that much.
And in a mission I doubt you will see more than 2 LOD0 of this ship at anytime, we can use the original :v: model to make the lods..
BTW I'll stick with the planned pcount and when I'll finish we'll be finally able to make some true tests in game to have a real reference point for future models
-
Or you can ask that guy with the startreck ship to do some already.
-
well he was reporting around 40fps with a model that in bridge commander was rendered at about 2-3 fps.
Btw for many reasons he's having problems optimizing the mesh for ht&L, and more important he's using textures a bit...too big (4096x4096) :)
this one should be a little more realistic test
-
I am more than happy to release it to everyone (Sovereign Class model). I'm having problems finding a freee comprehensive file hosting means to get link here for everyone to download. I am not about to email everyone the files.
In Regard to textures, the 4096x2048 was Chronocidal Guy's (his model) test textures was meant to put Bridge Commander to the test. There are also 1024x512 and 512x256 versions.
The Galaxy, I cannot release till the model's author finishes it (not like i have the means anyway).
Currently I am trying to get the geniouses of FSO to take a look at the prefered single mesh set up of the Sovereign which works fine as multiple meshes divided into groups despite some texture anomolies. You can see the framerate. in this post:
http://dynamic3.gamespy.com/~bridgecommander/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=204780#204780
This is the Bridge Commander Forum which discussed the rediculous frame rate this 4096x2048 texture was giving them:
http://bcfiles.com/file.info?ID=17875
The single mesh goal is looking quite bleek at this moment. It is only 8K and it crashes Freespace like crazy. I get .5 sec after I click out of mission briefing before it crashes. The Galaxy model has 5k more polygons.
Last night I was analyzing individual meshes and found a number of rediculously unoptimized objects. A simple square shape would have over 15 polygons. I'm trying to isolate this problem to see if it is the cause of the problem. The Sovereign has at it's currrent crashing state 8k polys.
-
I found mine levelled out at about 7300 polys in a single object, most models of this size will compile and run in FS2, anything bigger seems to crash it, though, even though it compiles fine.
Flipside :D
-
THANK YOU Flipside. That tip solved my crashing problems. I was unaware of the > 7k poly crash problem. I limited my single mesh poly counts to 5k and that solved my Sovereign crash prob. MAD KUDOS TO YOU. I can now start turreting the 12k multi mesh beast.
-
mmmm
have the SCP guys placed a limit w/o advising us, or is it something they didn't know too?
-
SEVEN, count them, SEVEN Galaxy class starships and 2 squadrons of Herc II's make an ill-fated assault on a Shivan SATHANAS!!!
Galaxy (16k polys with 1.5k Poly shields and 36 turrets) x 7
It may not be evident on the pictures but believe me they are there.
Hows that for a good bench press for FSO.
http://dynamic3.gamespy.com/~bridgecommander/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=214306
I'll try 14 now.... =)
I want to crash the game damn it!
Update: I've gathered a fleet of 10, one of which is a Sovereign!!! Pictures in the same link, at the bottom of that page.
-
*jaw drops to the floor*
*wants those models so bad so he can FRED a full-blown mission with hte Enterprise, the shivans and the GTVA :o*
-
Sovereign = Spooge
:yes:
-
(http://dynamic3.gamespy.com/~bridgecommander/phpBB/files/screen04_404.jpg)
holy **** that is awesome me want's:eek2: :eek: :) :yes: :yes:
-
the light on the galaxies' dish, where there is the identification number, is a texture/glow effect?
-
Wow... and they're all hi-poly ships?! What was the framerate like when things were really going crazy?
-
i think that high poly models should be like this
Fighter's/bombers 1000
Cruiser's 2000-3000
corvettes 3000-4000
Destroyer's 5000-6000
and non-compat ships 1000-5500 support,station's etc etc
-
Originally posted by Holy Imperial Gloriano
i think that high poly models should be like this
Fighter's/bombers 1000
Cruiser's 2000-3000
corvettes 3000-4000
Destroyer's 5000-6000
and non-compat ships 1000-5500 support,station's etc etc
And you've based that on what?
-
just idea :)
-
Not a very good one. It wouldn't make much of a difference from the standard FS2 especially when it comes to fighters and things like the Galaxy model would be right out.
-
The Saucer light is a glow map. That Galaxy port also has LODS that can give the folks with aging video cards some slack. I believe the lowest detail model has only 300 polys but is REALY ugly. The step below the highest is shown in the first picture I ever put up of the Galaxy, 3000 Polys I believe.
My system can handle multiple 16k's so I'm gonna try and push it to the brink. FS seems to crash when I try to put 9 Galaxies and 1 Sovy in the same Sathanas scenario. Investigating the crash...
-
I would just like to say that that picture is obscenely gobsmacking. Oh, and this:
(http://burns.thefinaldimension.org/cwm/cwm/eek2.gif)
-
actually the last LOD should be far less than 300 triangles.
you really don't need details, the LOD3 model is used just to give something to render in the few pixels of the monitor used at its render distance.
and - believe me on this- 3k polys is far, far too high even for lod1.
The point is that this way you reduce a lot the gameplay, LODS are intended just to increase gameplay, for models without much details or high res textures, that will be useless at the distances they are rendered.
A model of around 1k triangles will be even too much for a lod1.
-
I reckon a decent guid for LODing (specifically LOD1) is to shrink the view of the model down to the size ingame - the left-side HUD display, to be precise.
-
Lod1 is also used for your targetting display image of the ship, so I try to keep it moderately detailed, but after that, It doesn't matter too much.
Sorry Aldo, didn't see your post :)
-
Make that 11 Galaxy Classes, 1 Sovereign, 1 Sathanas!!!!
I'm just gonna keep upping the anty till it crashes.
Part 2 of the Sathana's incursion into the federation.
http://dynamic3.gamespy.com/~bridgecommander/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=13341
-
WOW:eek2: :eek2: :eek2: :eek2: :eek:
-
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: ;7
-
Should I bother trying to optimize a mesh (galaxy) that does not render corectly in FRED but renders fine in the game? I'm getting mesh streaks everwhere in it, I have to turn OFF "show models" in order to see what I'm doing!
-
Fred can be difficult, as long as it works in game, I' say that was what is important for now :) I have some models that don't show at all, or have to remain untextured until I am ready to play the game because they crash Fred when it tries to load the textures, it's the poly limits in Fred :)
-
Thank you.... you just put a stop to my obsessive cumpulsive disorder with mesh optimizations. Now I can concentrate on more conversions.
-
time for some more wips
I removed all the connections between the extrusions (like if all the extrusion are independent meshes, that will be merged into the same object), and I used some very minimal intersections, cutting a lot the pcount, now I'm at 7800 triangles.
The counterpart is that I'm not exactly sure how it will work in game, I just take this model as a strategy test for my future SW models.
I'll try to polyreduce it a little more, since 7800 is still a bit too much (there are no turretts except the main one), I'll aim at around 6k, but this time I'll have to go in the brutal way, removing details and reducing the smoothness of the cylinders.
here are the shots, before I'll start again polyreduction:
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/swfs2/wips/fenrisa.jpg)
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/swfs2/wips/fenrisb.jpg)
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/swfs2/wips/fenrisc.jpg)
-
Keep the old version for people to make renders with though :)
-
:yes: :yes:
-
thats sweet, is any one else making hi-poly poly re-makes still?
-
well its a bit underdetailed for rendering, and more important the higher poly version will almost likely remain untextured.
Further note: as I already said I used the textured version of the :v: model as reference.
My goals is to provide a model that could be mapped using the original high res textures, without changing them too much. Whoever will texture she, will have to just use cut the offset details and move them into the right position, use the clone tool to cover the holes, use placeholders here and there to map some of the polys
-
Wow. I want to learn to do that!
-
what would it take to get this in to the media VP to replace the current Fenris and leviathon?
-
Hey, she's coming along. Nice one. :yes:
-
Can we do super LODing? So that we have 5 levels of detail instead of the normal 4? That way we can preserve lower level computers performance in mid to large scale battles but while enjoying the higher levels of detail (naturally this new high detail Fenris would need its own versions of LOD's but it may be smart to be careful doing these things - optimized for everything as it were :D).
-
For the lower LODs, you might as well grab 'em from the original designs, using that LOD0 as the LOD1 for the hi-poly design, and so on... if that's legal. As far as the Leviathan is concerned, GalEMP (or come of his comrades in porting) have altered the Fenris skin for the Port to give it a blue circle thing on the side versus the Fenris' red. I have said this before (a few times actually), but I think further changes to destinguish the Fenris from the Leviathan are in order, and I suggest that the Leviathan be equiped with 3 small, single barrel deckgun style turrets, located on the forward upper segment, and on the upper and lower surfaces of the engine segment. I suggest these locations since they are the only flat spots on the hull and thus the only places that moving turrets can be mounted.
Later!
-
i thikn that is was the whole idea for the LOD's actually, as for the destinguishing between fenris and the levi ... target them and look at your little box? But yeah, it could be cool to add deck guns n **** ... just dont change em too much.
-
Originally posted by KARMA
time for some more wips
I removed all the connections between the extrusions (like if all the extrusion are independent meshes, that will be merged into the same object), and I used some very minimal intersections, cutting a lot the pcount, now I'm at 7800 triangles.
The counterpart is that I'm not exactly sure how it will work in game, I just take this model as a strategy test for my future SW models.
I'll try to polyreduce it a little more, since 7800 is still a bit too much (there are no turretts except the main one), I'll aim at around 6k, but this time I'll have to go in the brutal way, removing details and reducing the smoothness of the cylinders.
Now that's a better mindset :) ( I still think you should aim for 5K max, tho )
-
*sees Fenris*
*dies*
-
well, as said, I planned a ship of 6-8k triangles, so I'm just below the higher limit. I'd just like to get closer to the lower limit, instead of being around the higher one.
I estimate that I should be able to cut 500-1000 triangles w/o much problems (I have around 2k polys in cylinders) , but to reduce more, I'd have to "brutally" cut many details, wich I'd like to avoid since it could cause some "holes" into the detail density: the result would be crap. It would require a major redesign rather than a simple polyreduction, wich I'm not going to do.
As soon as the model work in game and got textured, it can obviously be added to the mediaVP..it is what it is intended for:)
For the LODS, I suppose we can use the original :v: Fenris, this mean that we'll have 5 potential LODs, but if kazan is right, FS2 use only the first 4 LODS, no matter how many detail levels you converted.
I also just saw that Odyssey started it's own high poly fenris: it's good since if my model doesn't work flawlessy, you could use his one, if both models will work flawlessy, we can use one for the Fenris, and one for the Leviathan
-
I know I could probably search for this, but how many polies did the original fenris have?
-
Just a quick question: How much textures can be used in the latest HTL versions per subobject? There are certain models which cause us heavy problems, and removing some of the textures would make them ugly.:(
-
They'll keep telling you:
"As few as possible"
-
removeing textures will not make models ugly, you will simply have to do a better job of UV mapping them
-
So what's the maximal number of texture maps, now?
-
Originally posted by Lynx
So what's the maximal number of texture maps, now?
As few as possible, IIRC.
-
I'm still trying to bake the Nero so I can send Ryx a supa-efficient copy. :)
-
don't bake capships, that's the wrong way to go about it, if you have three or four or five textures thats fine (for a capship), but the people who have forty six seperate textures on one ship realy need to rethink there stratagy
-
I have ~20. I don't think it'll do very well with less textures...
-
I tend to bake mine to a 2048 x 2048 texture anyway, worked fine on the Atlantis :)
-
That's what I was trying to do, but whenever I exported the mesh, it lost the texture data...
-
This is a tricky one, Lightwave always exports OBJ files with 1 material only :( Have you tried exporting as 3DS? Either way 3D Explorer will fubar the textures. What I suggest is this....
1 : In the Display tab in Modeller, click the Grouping button and apply a name to each layer of your model.
2 : Now, when you merge the model and export it, it will be divided into submodels. Export as OBJ. The UV data is there, but no materials are.
3 : Use UVMapper, Deep Paint, Lithium or whatever to apply the correct material to each group.
It can still be a fiddly job, but it's worth the effort in the end ;)
-
I was working on the fenris model, actually I was planning to complete the mesh today in about 10 minutes, but before making the last tests I decided to add a couple of minor details, that I feeled were necessary.
As I've already said, I'm taking this model as a test for some strategies: I used an insane amount of submodels and some simple intersections. Both of those strategies can let you save many many polys, I estimate from 30 to 50% (but it just depend by the model), so it is interesting.
I noticed that there is a limit at the number of submodels you can have, well honestly I don't know if it is a "true" submodel limit, or something else, but I know that in this case if I have more than around 140 submodels the game crash.
I reduced the number of submodels (I was around 200...) making successive tests to find the limit, until the game stop crashing.
Then I made a collision test, and...****! I could fly through the ship.
Solved a problem here comes another one!
The annoying thing was that this never happened in the earlyer tests:/
After hours spent looking for the cause I remembered about the last details added (I nevre thought at them due to their simplicity and their size).
I removed them and the model started to work flawlessy:rolleyes:
The "funny" thing is that a simple cube of 10 triangles smaller than a feet's finger compared to a man's body and intersecting other minor submodels, but not the main hull, was enough to completely screw the whole BSP generation process of all the model, and therefore to make the whole ship non solid in game:/
And this happen when there are other intersections, that althought still very minimal are surely worse than this one.
bah!:hopping:
now it's late, I'll try to understand tomorrow if there is something I missed on those detail ( degenerated polys, double verts...), and I'll release -if nothing else happen- the mesh for whoever wants to give it a go at texturing.
-
I think your problem there may well be points or polys too close together, this has caused problems for me before :)
-
More... errr... winter cleaning. :) *unstuck*
-
well, it's summer everywhere else