[Akalabeth Angel]

     Are Detail Boxes limited to users using 3DS Max? Or can it be used with other modelling software (specifically Maya)

[Water]

     Are Detail Boxes limited to users using 3DS Max? Or can it be used with other modelling software (specifically Maya)

Any user of PCS2 can use detail boxes.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Big Necro but I don't want to start a new thread for what is essentially the same topic. (just a different question under that topic)

I'm just wondering, what are some of the limitations for detail boxes? I noticed in the ISD thread in the Star Wars section, daBrain said something to the effect of "don't use too many or it'll kill performance". I'm just wondering about a few scenarios though.

Let's say someone wanted to model the Death Star, as one chunk. It seems that having detail boxes for the various "panels" would seem like a good idea.

Or as another example, what if someone were doing a Gundam mod and wanted combat inside one of the big O'Niell style space colonies (big 30km long cylinders). It seems to me that having like a few blocks of houses/buildings as a detail box might be a good idea. (so as the player fights various other bad guys within the cylinder, groups of houses appear or disappear depending on their distance to the player. At long range, maybe they're just a flat texture) I mean one other possibility is to have them as separate objects with normal LODs but because the cylinder is always rotating for the sake of artificial gravity. The same could be applied to any sort of combat within a large, enclosed space (Babylon 5 for example, which typically wouldn't have fighters in there, but let's say someone wanted some crazy space suit combat like Moonraker), or as another example large colony ships similar to BSG's cloud 9 or Macross 7 but larger in scope.

Or is that kind of detail simply far outside the scope of the game??
The buildings of course wouldn't have to be anything more than a textured cube, possibly with a destroyed-version on a block by block basis. Trees could be pyramids, cubes or omitted entirely.

[DaBrain]

Let's say someone wanted to model the Death Star, as one chunk. It seems that having detail boxes for the various "panels" would seem like a good idea.

Well, each panel as one detail box would result in a massive frame drop.

Rather put a lot of them into one "model/mesh" (attach to mesh) and use a single detail box for bigger areas of the Deathstar.
I.e. a section of 200m in the trench.

Don't worry abou the total amount of polygons, but about the number of detail boxes.

[Bobboau]

basically each detail box gets drawn separately, separately drawn chucks of geometry are slower than chunks drawn together, MUCH slower, if the average geometry you are ataching to a detail box is less than, oh, 5000 polygons your doing it wrong.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Let's say someone wanted to model the Death Star, as one chunk. It seems that having detail boxes for the various "panels" would seem like a good idea.

Well, each panel as one detail box would result in a massive frame drop.

Rather put a lot of them into one "model/mesh" (attach to mesh) and use a single detail box for bigger areas of the Deathstar.
I.e. a section of 200m in the trench.

   Ah cool, yeah that's actually what I meant I think. By Panel I didn't mean greeble, but rather the uh "panels" that were designed to make up the Death star (like I've got that original Star Wars artbook and it shows some examples of the different sorts of panels they made). Basically all the squares making up the surface which I think would be easily 200metres or more. So bigger is better basically, in that if someone had say . . . . a bunch of 10K polygon detail boxes (say 10 of them) it would be much better than 50x 2000 polygon detail boxes.

[z64555]

I'm well aware this is a post that's well over 30 days, but I do believe my questions are still valid... 


With reference to this even older thread I found this entry:

In MAX you add this to the user defined properties:
$detail_box: 1
$box_min: -1500,-1500,-1500
$box_max: 1500,1500,1500

(Those values determine the size of the virtual box. In meters.)

Now, I've figured out how to add these to the detail object in Max and in PCS2, but I need to know what is used as the center for the virtual box that's created. Is it the pivot point of the detail object?

Additionally, since the detail object will have to be separate from the main mesh, how should I name it? (or rather NOT name it?)

[Flipside]

The 30-day thing is just an automated thing that pops up, if the post is relevant to the discussion (which it is) then don't worry about it

As far as I'm aware, the boxes work, as you say, from the pivot point of the object being detailed. I'm not sure on naming conventions though, not sure if anyone has pointed you to the Wiki (it looks like that's where you got the info from, so the answer is probably yes) - http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Detail_box

Hopefully someone who's used them can come along and give you some clearer info.

[z64555]

Thanks Flipside for the quick reply. 

I did some digging in the wiki and didn't really find any info about the center of the detail box... so I'm guessing it will either have to be the pivot point of the detail object... or the center of the Xform.

I'm hoping that it is the pivot point, because that would allow the detail box to be offset from the detail object.

Essentially, I want to use detail boxes as a form of LOD control on several subobjects. I don't want the subobjects to be switching LOD's along with with main hull, because my object is pretty angular except for the subobjects and is big enough to obscure the subobjects:

Fenris Arena Station (Image)

The main hull is the part of the station that kinda looks like a jack or a cross. the subobjects are the various pieces of antennae, big dishes, landing pads, and the curved "saucer" segments near the main hull.

[zookeeper]

Yes, it's from the pivot of the detailboxed subobject.

[z64555]

Yes, it's from the pivot of the detailboxed subobject.

That's a relief!