Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: morris13 on May 05, 2001, 10:42:00 am
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I went back in to try and "clean up" my gunstar model this morning. For simplicity, when I origionally made the thing, I made it out of 11 separate objects. (not SUBobjects, just un-connected wireframe extrusions)The Center hull, the wings, and the engine and gun pods. I thought it'd be worthwhile to go in and connect it all together, thus removing the faces in between the bits that you can't see anyway and just generally making it neat and tidy and all one connected piece. What I found though was that while my vert count was going down (since I was combining pairs of adjacent verts anyway) my poly count actually went up by about the same number. I'm wondering then if its actually worthwhile to "clean" a model in this way or just to leave it messy, if cleaning it up increases the poly count. Any thoughts/experience with this?
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mmh, you must have done it a weird way, because at least your polycount shouldn't change (and if you deleted polys, it must be lower...)...
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venom2506
Member of the Robotech mod for FS2 ("http://robotechlan.com/freespace2/")
and of Hidden Terror, the Shivan campaign ("http://shivancampaign.homestead.com/index.html")
and My own page ("http://www.geocities.com/venom250681/Venom2506.html")
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Well, it doesnt quite work that way. Often I have to create a new vertice or two in order to be able to link the two objects together properly. If I have to add one vert to the side of a face in order to link it to the next object I've just turned two polys into three. Obviously this isn't nessecarily a good thing, but what I'm really curious about is if making the model contiguous instead of separated has other benifits. It would seem like it might be easier to render a contiguous object rather than one divided into lots of little bits, but i'm not sure if thats actually how it works, so i'm looking for someone who knows about this sort of thing.
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If you're rendering it, making it out of lots of little bits isn't a big deal. However it's not for rendering, it's for a game, which means you have very different priorities. I used to make them out of multiple objects and join them together until I just recently figured out how to make models out of single objects, which while in some ways more difficult, in other ways easier. Plus, it lets you control the mesh a bit more directly. So.... if you intend to have it in-game, I'd suggest rebuilding it from one onject that's been extruded to hell. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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Thats what I thought. I won't actually have to rebuild it, its easy enough to just merge them together using the create face function in blender and redo the DXF and cob files.
I've tried doing it both ways, and while extruding from a single object is an easier way to wind up with a single mesh, it can wind up making things harder later on if you're dealing with a complex shape.
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Does FS2 care that much if you create a ship from an extruded object or by joining lots of parts together? I know you're more likely to end up with parts of faces that never get seen, but you CAN save on the total face count sometimes, and it frequently is easier to build.
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Sushi- the OTHER white meat!
Accelerate your game-Velocity Mod ("http://sushicw.homestead.com/files/freespace/velocity.htm")
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I can sum it up in two basic points that almost always hold true:
Multiple objects - good for large geometrical ships that have small details also easier to build.
Single extruded object - good for getting a realistic curved "flowing" shape, not so easy to build.
Either way is good depending on what way you like to work, I mostly prefer to build large geometrical ships with fewer curves because I recon that they look a little more realistic. Curves are good for fighters.
Bear in mind that there are a lot of good models that don't follow my rule it's just an easier way to work (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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...but which does FS like better, if either?
And as for me, I seem to be leaning towards the multiple-objects philosophy. Multiple objects make it easy to interchange parts.
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Sushi- the OTHER white meat!
Accelerate your game-Velocity Mod ("http://sushicw.homestead.com/files/freespace/velocity.htm")
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That would make it easier on the modeler. Things with engine and weapon pods especially are hard to extrude properly, and using separate objects can help reduce poly count a lot, since you don't have to use extra faces and vertices making sure everything lines up properly if you have shapes that don't naturaly flow into each other.
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how you get it into a single subobject does not realy matter, the importent thing is that it is one subobject (not counting turrets and such naturaly), though I usualy tell people to make it OUT of one subobject, as in no bouliens no tricks just placeing a cube (or a spline object) and makeing it into a ship, and makeing it out of triangles, becase after about two months of that they will have great geometry skills, and will be able to make extreemly complicated geometry with bouliens and tricks, and be able to manipulate the geometry on the verticy level and precisely and perfictly, I guess this doesn't realy matter if your just doing this for fun, but if your tring to impress people (like game companys) it's best to learn to do it right.
(by that I don't mean the learning proces wich is why I am always harping on people, I mean final products to look as good as [v]'s)
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Bobboau, bringing you products that work.............. in theory
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Well, I do all my modeling in blender, so I connect things together by using vertex linking and face creation tools, so it winds up being pretty much like it had origionally been one wireframe to begin with.
What IS a boolean anyway?
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So, what is your definition of "subobject" anyways? One connected group of verts and polys with no breaks, or something that is a group of whatever elements defined to be an object by 3ds?
Makes a BIG difference in how I deal with my model from where I am.
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Sushi- the OTHER white meat!
Accelerate your game-Velocity Mod ("http://sushicw.homestead.com/files/freespace/velocity.htm")