[Fry_Day]

Black Magic

[EdrickV]

Originally posted by IPAndrews


Please explain how can a triangle have 3 vertices on one side?

Well, technically it wouldn't be a triangle. But it could look like one so that if you didn't know that 4th vert was there, you would think it was a triangle. I ran into that problem myself on a model I thought was pretty well triangulated. (Not sure if I just hadn't triangulated that face or the program skipped it because the overall shape was a triangle.)

[Fry_Day]

That fourth vertex makes it a quad.
you should have said 'One straight line with more than two vertices'

I figured that was what you meant in the first place, it probably means the modeller has too much caffeine in his blod stream if he missed it

[EdrickV]

Originally posted by Fry_Day
That fourth vertex makes it a quad.
you should have said 'One straight line with more than two vertices'

I figured that was what you meant in the first place, it probably means the modeller has too much caffeine in his blod stream if he missed it

I talked about triangle shaped faces because that's what the original poster mentioned and I know that splitting faces can result in lines with 3 or more verts in a row on them on a face that looks like a triangle. That 3 verts in a row thing could also explain why other faces suddenly stopped working. Fortunately for me Wings3D has menu items that let me select every face that has either 5 or more verts, or 4 verts. So I can easily double check to see that my triangle shaped faces really are triangles, now that I know what to look for.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by EdrickV


Well, technically it wouldn't be a triangle. But it could look like one so that if you didn't know that 4th vert was there, you would think it was a triangle. I ran into that problem myself on a model I thought was pretty well triangulated. (Not sure if I just hadn't triangulated that face or the program skipped it because the overall shape was a triangle.)

That seems a bit odd, to me, if a program does that..... if you use a diagonal across the corner of those faces (top left to bottom right corner, say), its a LOT better (2 faces instead of 3, and less vertices and edges)

Oh, BTW - I NEVER had any problems with Blender models when I use dPCS.  In fact, i have more probs with Max models than I did with blender.

[EdrickV]

Originally posted by aldo_14


That seems a bit odd, to me, if a program does that..... if you use a diagonal across the corner of those faces (top left to bottom right corner, say), its a LOT better (2 faces instead of 3, and less vertices and edges)

Oh, BTW - I NEVER had any problems with Blender models when I use dPCS.  In fact, i have more probs with Max models than I did with blender.

The program didn't do that example, I did that. And on the model I was talking about, I wasn't sure whether I'd triangulated the problematic faces at all. (I might have skipped them 'cause they looked fine. I rarely triangulate an entire model.)  Sometimes I like to triangulate my models on my own since Wings3D doesn't always triangulate them the same on both sides. I also dislike having faces along the center line of a ship having a simple slash split. I like symmetrical models. (So when I can avoid it I don't triangulate them or triangulate them something like the above, but better.) That'll all be irrelivent anyways 'cause from now on I'm going to try to have a line along the center of the ship, it'll help in texturing.

[TrashMan]

I'm using TrueSpace 4.2, and PCS from the Freespace Allaince Pack 2. I trimmed the turret number to 85. It still tends to switch them. (22 are twin-barreld, all others are normal turrets).
It could be do to the fact I named them like:
turret01, ..... turret50 - normal turrets
turretB01,.....,turretB12 - beam turrets
turretMain01a, ......, turretMain22a - multi-part turrets

There are NO turrets on other LODs!

[Solatar]

That should work, but isn't the turret limit 75? Not 85?

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Hades
That should work, but isn't the turret limit 75? Not 85?

I`ve given up beating my head on the brick wall of telling him that. I`d suggest doing that too.

[TrashMan]

The last I heard was 89! 75!?
That isn't much - I'll have to make the battleship smaller, with that little turrets It won't have a good cover area. Well, I'll guess that 5km should be enough.
The Main guns and the beam cannons I won't touch - that means that I'll have to trim at least 10 anti-fighter turrets.

[Anaz]

Originally posted by TrashMan
I'm using TrueSpace 4.2, and PCS from the Freespace Allaince Pack 2. I trimmed the turret number to 85. It still tends to switch them. (22 are twin-barreld, all others are normal turrets).
It could be do to the fact I named them like:
turret01, ..... turret50 - normal turrets
turretB01,.....,turretB12 - beam turrets
turretMain01a, ......, turretMain22a - multi-part turrets

There are NO turrets on other LODs!

don't do the b01 stuff, just continue after 50, so B01 becomes 51, follow?

[Vasudan Admiral]

Originally posted by TrashMan
I'm using TrueSpace 4.2, and PCS from the Freespace Allaince Pack 2. I trimmed the turret number to 85. It still tends to switch them. (22 are twin-barreld, all others are normal turrets).
It could be do to the fact I named them like:
turret01, ..... turret50 - normal turrets
turretB01,.....,turretB12 - beam turrets
turretMain01a, ......, turretMain22a - multi-part turrets

There are NO turrets on other LODs!

well, one potential problem there is that unless you are using DTP's version, fs will only accept 10 rotating turrets.

[Anaz]

really? well....learn something new every day...


( :D900 POSTS!! w00t!!!!!!:D )

[EdrickV]

A few "max" things that modellers may be interested in knowing about, straight out of the freespace2_public source code:

#define MAX_ROTATING_SUBMODELS 10
#define MAX_TFP  4  // maximum number of turret firing points
#define MAX_MODEL_SUBSYSTEMS 128     // used in ships.cpp (only place?) for local stack variable when reading in ships.tbl
#define MAX_MODEL_DETAIL_LEVELS   8
#define MAX_POLYGON_MODELS   128
#define MAX_DEBRIS_OBJECTS   32
#define MAX_MODEL_TEXTURES   64

[Vasudan Admiral]

just to clarify: the 4 TFP limit is for missile turrets only. for laser turrets it's 3.
and just a question, does the max polygon models refer to the max # of ships in one mission, the max # of sub-objects a ship can have, the max # of ship entrys there can be in the ships tbl or the max # of any poly models in a mission (jumpnodes & asteroid fields etc)

[EdrickV]

Originally posted by Vasudan Admiral
just to clarify: the 4 TFP limit is for missile turrets only. for laser turrets it's 3.
and just a question, does the max polygon models refer to the max # of ships in one mission, the max # of sub-objects a ship can have, the max # of ship entrys there can be in the ships tbl or the max # of any poly models in a mission (jumpnodes & asteroid fields etc)

I think the max polygon models is for the POF files. (Max number of subobjects + the main object.) I'm not sure though, I only saw it after I posted. I do recall seeing a max number of ships that was set at 130 in another file.

[TrashMan]

Only 10 rotating turrets?
Are you APSOLUTELY SURE?
I put 75 turrets and now they look o.k. im Modelview (I still name them the same...turretB01a and so on).
I still have 22 rotating turrets, and it looks good in FRED2.
In the test mission I made, I fly around the ship for a minute or two, and then the game chrashes (but then again, it sometimes does that with ships that have far less turrets), and I allso tested a battlecruiser (has 14 rotating turets), and it works fine!

[EdrickV]

That max is for the original exe and any SCP ones that do not have the limit raised. I have no idea what the limit might be right now in the fs_open version. I'm not entirely sure what happens if you go over the max, but it might end up overwriting some other data which could cause crashes in the game, with Windows, or do other stuff. (Or then again it may just not show all the turrets.) ModelView32 wasn't made from the source code and may be more tolerant then FS2 actually is. POFView on the other hand is about as tolerant as FRED2 and seems to use the same graphics engine.

[Vasudan Admiral]

have you made sure that all 14 turrets work? cos i've breached that limit before and what happens is that everything works fine untill (any?) one of the rotating (and in some cases the unrotating) turrets is supposed to fire/rotate. then fs crashes with the usual lack of an error message.
also try renaming the "turretB01" as Analazon said.

[StratComm]

The functional limit always seemed to be 89 subobjects, including LOD's, debris, turrets, barrels (seperate from turrets), subsystems, etc.  It doesn't surprise me that it will accept a few more, but 22 dual-axis turrets is 44 submodels, plus the hull and the other 60, and you have a minimum of well over 100 submodels.  Add in the finishing touches and you are way, way past the limit.