[tomcat]

I am modeling in TS(also did 3dMax and someLW)..but for Fs2 i consider it the apropriate one. Ts is rather medium at modeling is u are used with it..the worst part is mostly rendering ,texturing and all other:)
and TS can triagulate unflat faces ..witch is good..Pointedit property Check Triangles. easy:)

Aldo for me triagulation is a NO GO situation..i need polygons for details ..remeber i am modeling with constarins.(the model in 1.5Kpoly must resamble one with 30k poly withc is realy hard to do ...u should try it once)

[karajorma]

Originally posted by tomcat
I am modeling in TS(also did 3dMax and someLW)..but for Fs2 i consider it the apropriate one. Ts is rather medium at modeling is u are used with it..the worst part is mostly rendering ,texturing and all other:)
and TS can triagulate unflat faces ..witch is best..Pointedit property Check Triangles. easy:)

Aldo for me triagulation is a NO GO situation..i need polygons for details ..remeber i am modeling with constarins.(the model in 1.5Kpoly must resamble one with 30k poly withc is realy hard to do ...u should try it once)

Learn something new every day I`ll have to give that a try.

[KARMA]

personally i have the same problem, none of my models will be working without splitting it if triangulated
i think that part of the problems comes when you don't realize an original design but you use some kind of reference (star wars, b5....), in this case ppl usually tends to use more polys to render more details that in other situations you don't take care about...mainly because in other situations the reference doesn't have that level fo detail;)
personally i still hate truespace (5.0), point editing is a nightmare and there are a lot of functions missing that would be absolutely necessary, expecially when you join different objects, well even MAX suck in modelling but for MAX there are  the famous meshtools, for truespace i was able to find only a single plugin decently working that is able to connect 2 faces with same n° of edges of two different obj's, other points needed would be a more powerful "pointdraw" and a better control of the faces generated (that sometime got screwed)
for all these reasons i'm still as slow as hell when it comes to modelling but i have to say that after a little experience you become able to slightly reduce the number of faces that will require manual triangulization to work in game by modelling in the "right" way (avoiding general errors and faces generated by booleans)
(another tool that would be useful is a triangulate only selected faces:p)

[IPAndrews]

To triangulate or not to triangulate. That is the question.
Not to triangulate is obviously the answer.

[Killfrenzy]

So what would you suggest as a replacement?

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by IPAndrews
To triangulate or not to triangulate. That is the question.
Not to triangulate is obviously the answer.

I think the answer is;

if you're working to a tight design - i.e. like tomcat does - , then do all the triangulation manually.  Oh, tomcat -  I understand  why you can't use triangulation because of the contraints you work upon for the B5 models- but I don't think it's fair to say it's universally a bad thing.  Especially with Max users, who'd probably have to manually detriangulate the model and then start retriangulating the individual faces by scratch.  Which is a right pain in the tits, I'd guess, especially if you don't get paid for it.

if you're working to your own design, and your able to model fairly efficiently, then it's a moot point.

I'm not a modeller as such, and I've lost me big 3d pipeline tutorial sheet i used for uni, but I really think that there is no problem with triangulating stuff for what I do.

[tomcat]

ActualL TS will let you untriagulate the face that are flat..
Just use a Subtract with a nonintersecting object let delete face marked and it will untriagulate all the faces that are FLAT ..the unflat ones will remain triagulated ...

[IPAndrews]

TS is more than happy to untriangulate models

[KARMA]

yes but it also untriangulate a lot faces that will have problems, more than if you already build your model in this way. (expecially if you have faces generated by the hated booleans operations, in this case its better probably to triangulate the model)
i also suggest to use both triangulate first and delete edges options selected

[IPAndrews]

Untriangulate a model in the way TC is suggesting and TS will remove edges on flat faces that do not affect the shape of the model. The only real use for this is to give you a "clean slate" so that you can manually stabilise the model again by adding the minimum no. of edges.

Triangulate whole models if you're lazy sod and/or don't care about your poly count. Assuming the poly count increase doesn't push you over the sub-obj poly limit your models are guaranteed to work completely stably and pointlessly slowly.

Booleans should not be hated. They should be understood, used, and observed carefully.

[KARMA]

well, i had often a lot of problems untriangulating models not build in ts (and that i haven't build on my own),  too many faces to fix... i got better results as said (but only little better) using both "delete edges" and "triangulate first" options selected
 and about booleans i use them to "add" polys (modified primitives placed where they don't intersect the other meshes) that i move then in position, but to say how much i love booleans if i'm in a situation where i have to choose between having faces generated by booleans or using intersecting polys and i don't intend to triangulate all the model i surely choose intersecting polys:)

[IPAndrews]

For the second post in a row I haven't got a clue what you're on about Karma. I'm going to give up now.

[tomcat]

DOOH..Me feel Stupid.. Ian i come with you:)

[Killfrenzy]

How do you triangulate an individual face in TS5.1 then?

[IPAndrews]

Use either the Polygon Draw or Add Edge tool to draw an edge across it.

http://underworld.fortunecity.com/pacman/106/fs2mods/shipcreationguide/creatingyourmodelusingts.html

[aldo_14]

Um...there is no way in hell I am ever going to let Ts fiddle with my carefully built models, given the sheer hell I've had trying to import some from 3ds into it.  Besides which, it would be a ***** for me to do, because it would be hard to maintain the symmetry.