[Omniscaper]

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!

[Flipside]

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

[Omniscaper]

Thank you.... you just put a stop to my obsessive cumpulsive disorder with mesh optimizations. Now I can concentrate on more conversions.

[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.
here are the shots, before I'll start again polyreduction:

[karajorma]

Keep the old version for people to make renders with though

[Knight Templar]

[Sheepy]

thats sweet, is any one else making hi-poly poly re-makes still?

[KARMA]

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 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

[Taristin]

Wow. I want to learn to do that!

[redmenace]

what would it take to get this in to the media VP to replace the current Fenris and leviathon?

[Setekh]

Hey, she's coming along. Nice one.

[IceFire]

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 ).

[Trivial Psychic]

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!

[Sheepy]

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.

[Nico]

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 )

[diamondgeezer]

*sees Fenris*

*dies*

[KARMA]

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 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

[J3Vr6]

I know I could probably search for this, but how many polies did the original fenris have?

[Lynx]

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.

[Taristin]

They'll keep telling you:

"As few as possible"