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Galleon model


PinkDot

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I'll try it right now. I can make a prefab and have it ready to go. Sounds like a fairly simple job and that seems to be about all I want to do at the moment. I've been wanting to check it out for awhile but sometimes these things seem to get put on hold for too long.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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Yeah, very nice model. I ran around the whole thing.

 

One thing I noticed was a very low FPS of about 10. I'm thinking it might be best to split it up into pieces.

 

Like the deck below, have that one model. It could be sealed off with caulk and vis-portals, then when the player leaves that area that area won't be rendered. As is all the polys on the whole ship are rendered. Some of the top deck is under at least 6 lights and I think that slows the entire area down alot.

 

I didn't look too much at in in the editor yet other than to see it was one piece.

 

If it helps would you mind if I did that PinkDot?

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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I didn't look too much at in in the editor yet other than to see it was one piece.

 

If it helps would you mind if I did that PinkDot?

Of course feel free to do it.

 

The ship is two pieces actually - hull and rigging. And some props like steering wheel are separate. (probably not included there).

 

I also wanted to split it into several more parts. I wasn't sure which though. Maybe all back windows as a separate one. Any more ideas?

 

Just keep in mind that it might not be easy. The model is already multilayered - there's simplified collision and shadow mesh, which makes any making changes to it quite awkward.

If you want, I can upload a source file, since you're also 3dsmax user.

 

FPS is sometimes low, but there's water reflection and moonlight shadow there. Inside, fps is pretty good, I'd say.

 

but the flickering sky bugged the fuck out of me.

Yeah, that sky... I'm not sure even when and why it got like that.... Just don't treat it like a regular map - more like some test map...

 

 

------

I'm glad you like it - I will be happy when I see just one map with that model, before I die... ;)

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Well, mainly I think it should be more like a Morrowind building. The inside is one piece (actually it is a 'cell' that contains alot of modular interior pieces that fit together into different layouts), the outsides tend to be several pieces, like you have really, a shell, maybe some add on rooms and riggings, ect...

 

Except in DR we get to walk into the new areas instead of loading into them.

 

But basically this would get rid of all extrenal polys when you are inside and the same when outside. The outside FPS is really what concerns me most but it would help them both.

 

I noticed the reflective water, it's cool but swimming in it made pieces of the player mesh reflect and distort all over the water. So somehow player reflections would need turned off IMO (if reflective water is used in a map)

 

 

 

Yeah, please get me the source file. baddcog@gmail.com. 7z, winzip, whatever.

 

I'll see what I can do, maybe it'll help...

--------

OK, I see now, I took a little better look in DR and in game.

 

It looks like the inside is mostly terrain brushes and sealed with vis-portals.. So that's good, but it still sends polys for the whole ship to the processor. With r_showtris 3 I can see almost all of the ship polys when inside it.

 

I think what the deal is is that when you are inside the ship and sealed off you are still inside the model, so the center of the model is inside the ship so theoretically the entire model of the ship is inside the portal area you are in, so it gets processed.

 

So the ship should be split several ways.

 

The 2 top cabins (for and aft) should be seperate

I think if the origins of the pieces where inside of the floors then maybe the outside won't get rendered at all because the origins will be outside of the 'cell' you are in. This is theory right now :)

 

 

The posts (crows nests) should be seperate from the hull, maybe one combined piece

 

 

The riggings should all be seperate pieces, no, scratch that. I just checked and the origin for the riggins is in the center of the start room, just above head level. So they are getting processed too. I think moving the origin to their center instead of their base would fix that.

 

The back deck could be seperate

 

And the hull should be split into levels. Luckily you have the polys built like that and the wood beams in between so it'll be reall easy to do.

I think after all that the polycount inside will jump alot, and inside with doors open. It might not effect FPS outside too much, I think that'll have more to do with how the scene is lit, reflections, weather, AI and how much optimizing we get done.

But I do think it'll help with performance in general dock areas, if you go around a corner, thru a door (that is open), ect... more of the ship will be culled from view if it's split.

 

Not really much can be done about the outside other than that I guess. It's a massive object and is gonna require a large area around it. I have an idea for a scene I'd like to try it in.

I also think making collision/shadow meshes for the cannons needs done, I haven't looked at much else yet.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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OK, I'll send you that in the afternoon, when I'm home.

 

I see your plans are ambitious, but what I'd be afraid is that optimizing this model might take longer than creating it. For an actual map, I would probably just turn reflections off to make fps acceptable, but if you like doing this sort of stuff than I'm not going to discourage you... :)

 

Origin point for hull is somewhere at the deck level (slightly below, so props alligned to it are unnoticeably sunk rather than over it. The origin point of rigging is exactly the same - for easier positioning. It doesn'nt have to be the same but the offset must be multiplication of some grid size. Well, I'm pretty sure you know that already.

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One thing I noticed was a very low FPS of about 10.

Yes, and I found an interesting (perhaps obvious, but not to me) link: I was later working in DR, and when I browsed and applied any of the galleon textures to a brush, the editor slowed to a crawl! When I place any other texture on the same brushes, the framerate went right back up. The galleon textures are no bigger than any others, so what's the difference? This is the first tangible evidence I've seen of any individual texture really punching performance, and hard.

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Well, deleting the water and fixing the sky gave me 5 fps, but still it's about 15 max outside.

 

I will keep all pieces aligned :)

 

It might be a slight pain to disect it, but not as hard as creating it in the first place. Then it'll all be multibrushed so someone can add it to their level in one piece instead of piecing it together. So once all is said and done it should be easy for mappers to include.

 

If dividing it doesn nothing for FPS I will leave the original in place.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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I'm just sending you a file, Baddcoq. I cleared it a bit, but it's still a bit messy... Hopefully not too messy...

 

Another thing, that could be done, actually I was going to do it myself, but if you feel like separating some masts into individual models (extra models, I mean), this could be useful for building own ships, I'd say.

 

Thanks again for your help!

 

 

------------

 

Yes, and I found an interesting (perhaps obvious, but not to me) link: I was later working in DR, and when I browsed and applied any of the galleon textures to a brush, the editor slowed to a crawl! When I place any other texture on the same brushes, the framerate went right back up. The galleon textures are no bigger than any others, so what's the difference? This is the first tangible evidence I've seen of any individual texture really punching performance, and hard.

Now, that's interesting. I don't know what's wrong. The only thing I can think of is that I made two sets of those textures - one is _noshadows_ set - this is meant to be used only on galleon model, as it has its own shadow mesh. For brushes normal shaders should be used.

 

Also - on the topic of my galleon textures. I had a strange problem with deck texture (and only with this one). It wasn't working after conversion to DDS. Even after some changes to it, like the reason was in the name of it...!?! I don't know... I left it as TGA. Did anyone have similar issue?

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