Questions about shapes...

From my point of view of a mere painter (I don´t know anything about modelling or 3D design),
I frequently have some questions and doubts about shapes...

Which is better??:
-a shape with a reasonable balance between accuracy and polycount not too high.
OR
-a shape with a high polycount and amazing damage model, and it doesn´t matter the polycount if the lower lods are well developed.

Also you can add a brief description about your hardware:
LOW-END PC (Processor below 1 Ghz)
MEDIUM-END PC (Processor between 1-2 Ghz and less than 1Gb of RAM)
HIGH-END PC (Processor higher than 2 Ghz and RAM with 1Gb or more)

It could be an interesting Debate...

BEST REGARDS

Admin of GP4-Argentina

Right, polies have a very small effect on PO. It's the texture drawing which cause huge problems. I ran a test on this pile of piss PC with Oggo's B196, and ran it with original textures (1x2048 iirc), and then downsized them, then got rid of the texture entirely, then got rid of a bunch of polies from the shape.

The results surprised me to start off with...

I had an unplayable game with the 2048 texture, and it was a hell of a lot better with the 1x1024. Once I deleted the texture entirely, my PO was minimal, then once I quartered the polycount, my PO dropped by something like 2%, which is nothing tbh.

So imo, you can have a stupid polycount and a fantastic damage model, but only if you use decent sized textures. This is where e-shumi's ferrari is ridiculous imo, 33,000 polies, AND 3x2048 textures, it would make any game completely unplayable unless you have a beast PC. It doesn't help that there are no lower lods either.

Still, high polycount, reasonable textures is perfectly ok imo, but high polycount hi-res textures are a big no-no, especially for someone like me running a 5-year old system which can't even run the default cars with any reasonable quality

Hm for people as me a high detailled shape with great damage model is much better.

But i think for the hole community it's better to have a nice ballance between polycount and accuracy. If you have good lower lods, it shouldn't be a prob at all, so i think you can make a high detailled thing without lost to much of performance

--> 2 times Worldchampion 2oo5 & 2oo6' <--

i think tom sums it up nicely. With my super aguri, i went for a reasonably hi-poly count where i needed help with normals and ended with just over 11000 in the end. I made mistakes in the mapping, which meant i have one 2048x2048 texture plus a 1048x1028 but included many lower resolutions in my pack to compensate.

at any time only one or two lod_0 will be shown so it doesn't really matter. Lower lods - especially lod_4 - will save more power

____
Tony

I'd rather no damage model, 'cause this makes the game run slower... and If you're good driver and you have no collisions, damage model is a "waste of time"...

---

raulgullon.com -
Wedding and Motorsports Photography.

Depends what you mean by damage model... if its a clever system of how things fall off, then I'm all for it... but if you mean a detailed engine/gearbox/brake/chassis etc etc I personally like a low res version rather than none at all.

I prefer a quite accurate car with textures of 1024*1024 and with a good damage model with low-res texture for it because we don't see so often the inside of a car even in a big crash (it happened to me only twice since i play to gp4 and i'm not the best driver lol) but in that case i think it's more reallistic.

By the way to save my po i prefer use low-res helmets and high res cars because i tested on my computer to use 22 high-res helmets and my po was very high and it wasn't playable. i have a cars.wad with all the 2006 cars i was able to find (i can't tell whose the shapers, sorry i can't remember). these cars have all 1 or 3 (even one has 4: midland) hi-res textures in 1024*1024 except the renault which have only one texture in 2048*2048 and it works very fine on my computer. But if i use 22 helmets in hi-res, it slow down my game.

It's why on my website i only do low-res helmet. I will probably paint new versions of my helmets in 512*128 for the helmet and 256*128 for the top and the face because at these resolutions i lost a few fps but it still playable at these res.

yes it's a good idea
make a car with hi-polys
but lod_0 with 1 tex-2048
lod_1 with 1 tex-1024
lod_2,3,4 with 1 tex-512
and ofcourse make lower lods

ohhhhhhhhhh yes I like that it's very interesting


...:::ViVa MeXiCo CaBrOnEs:::...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/2006 11:16AM by e_shumi.

@mrt - I found when making some helmets last year, that if the top resolution is lower than the main texture, you can normally see the difference, personally i prefer them to match in resolution.

yes i know, but i use the original shape of the helmet which has two different res for the top and face(128*64) and the helmet (256*64) by opposition of the new helmet shapes that usually use two textures of 1024*256 or 2048*512 if it's what you meant. And we can't see difference between the top and the rest of the helmet as you can see on that pic (if it's what your menat too):

well you notice it once you converted to tex file and you lose quality. Personally i wouldnt use helmets over 1024x256 (x2)

Great helmets though

-a shape with a reasonable balance between accuracy and polycount not too high.

MEDIUM-END PC (Processor between 1-2 Ghz and less than 1Gb of RAM)