posted 11-15- 04:40 AM               

But beside of this little details the whole plane looks great from here

Great job Gustavo !!!!!!!!!!

gt

------------------
Please visit:
GT's HANGAR
Bombing the Reich

posted 11-16- 04:35 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Razer:
what parts need mapping? I might be able to do them real fast before i got back to my norm.

---

Basically, the three parts of the main body; the back wings with their ailerons; and the line helm.
The helix has the map, but he/she goes in the file Stirlin.TIF that I made it of a single color; the location is the same as that of the Lancaster.
One could also make the map in the escape pipes and the antennas...... although this would not be so important.

It would be very good that you solved this Razer, thank you

posted 11-17- 11:57 AM               

I can also put a shadow on it if you want.

**update**

The fuse is now mapped. (20mins)

I'll see what your reply is for the tail and shadow then I'll do those tonight before I go to bed.

posted 11-20- 10:02 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Razer:
gustavo, I started mapping your fuse for yea and noticed the tail has a pretty high poly count. If you want I can redo them at a lower poly count to help with FRs on this monster

---

Raz, two questions:

1) what is a "good" poly count for a plane?

2) how does something like Jane's get such good FR's with their planes? They appear to have roughly double the poly's. B-17 seems even higher.

Seems there's some serious tweakability in the engine.

posted 11-20- 11:27 AM               

1200-1500 is about the most you would ever use for the plane and cockpit.

High spec machines can probably use nmore, but lower spec machines may well struggle. The SPAD VII uses a total of 1513 polygons, but this includes a fully detailed cockpit and instruments, plus wires etc. and low detail lods are present for all the major components with appropriate switchouts.

I think the point Razer is making is that the tail had a lot of polygons, which weren't enhancing the model any. Better FR's could be had without making the model look any worse. Sometimes, with a complex shape, there is no way other than using more polygons. The art of good modelling for this sim is to use polygons where tehy do the most good

posted 11-20- 01:15 PM               

for the record WW2 fighters has a really really low count on thier planes. I'm guessing no more then 1200. This is low if you take IL-2 which has 2500, Warbirds 3 which has any where from 2900 to 3600. I try to stay around 2000 for bombers and 1500 to 1700 for single seat fighters.

posted 11-20- 02:09 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pierre Radiateur:
From personal experience, if you put more than 1000 polys in a high detail model, you will be risking slowdown. You can put more in, and on some of the bigger WW1 bombers I have used more, but you need to make sure that there are low detail models to switch in.

1200-1500 is about the most you would ever use for the plane and cockpit.

---

Ok, that sounds like a good rule of thumb.

One clarifying question: 1000 or so PER MODEL? Or is it 10000 or so PER MISSION.

IE, if you have only this plane in the game and nothing else on the ground or air, does it hit a wall at this number? Or do you mean that since people put about 6 planes and a AA then we're getting too high.

It's interesting that it's so low, considering all of the cards claim to be able to push hundreds of millions of polys per second.

Thus my curiosity as to how it _seems_ that B-17 (for instance) is pushing so many polys. For instance the planes have many details that ours don't - mass balances on controls, 3D props, a seemingly much higher poly count on the planes themselves (they're very smooth in comparison, although that could be an illusion), huge terrain, and men at each position.

Example. Take a look at this picture...
http://gamespot.com/gamespot/filters/products/screens/0,11105,378402-71,00.html

This image is a fake. There are three "local" objects in this picture - the men. There's also the terrain as seen outside the windows. There might be a gun ot two depending on where you are in the plane. The rest of the image is a static 2d backdrop, that's why you can't pan around in B-17.

On the other hand, look at this one...
http://gamespot.com/gamespot/filters/products/screens/0,11105,378402-57,00.html

Look at the prop, it's really 3D - notice how it's thicker at the hub? Also notice the smoothness of the entire model, consider the engine cowling for instance. Now is this a side effect of a huge poly count? Or is there some other way to do this? Special textures or something?

And finally, this one...
http://gamespot.com/gamespot/filters/products/screens/0,11105,378402-41,00.html

Notice how the majority of the plane is superbly detailed and smooth. You can see a few oddities however, consider the fuselage just under the rudder, it sort of folds. Also notice that the engine nacels are hexagonal like those in SDoE.

So this leads me to believe the issue is one of:

1) they can pump polys a lot faster than SDoE for some reason
2) they don't care, "get a new card you bum"
3) they are faking it somehow

However they do it, they have about 20 planes in the air, all of them with this suberb detailing. Now of course I'm playing it on a hot-rod so maybe that's all there is to it.

What _is_ the baseline these days anyway? Is 500Mhz a good number? What sort of card is considered the basic, a GeForce 2MX? What was before the GF2, a GF1? Or the TNT2?

quote:

---

I think the point Razer is making is that the tail had a lot of polygons, which weren't enhancing the model any.

---

Oh, I know, it just made me start thinking about it. I remember someone posted a picture with 100 or so planes in the air at once with a FPS around 10 or so. So by your math that's something like 100,000 polys for the planes before it gets bad (on that machine).

Now, how does that compare? Is there significant room for improvement in the engine, or is this basically the same sort of numbers everyone else is getting in their game engines?

BTW I do know there is one improvement we could use. The GeForce 3 (maybe 2, dunno) and the new Radeon both have a surface normal you can supply that rounds off the surface. This would be amazing in SDoE, we could keep the ploy counts what they are (or even reduce some of them I'd bet) and use the normals to smooth out the graphics. Things like tires, wings and nacells would suddenly become MUCH more detailed without much of a hit, and the exact same model would still work fine on older cards.

posted 11-20- 02:12 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Razer:
for the record WW2 fighters has a really really low count on thier planes. I'm guessing no more then 1200.

---

Ahhh, interesting. So the higher rez textures really do make a difference!

quote:

---

This is low if you take IL-2 which has 2500, Warbirds 3 which has any where from 2900 to 3600. I try to stay around 2000 for bombers and 1500 to 1700 for single seat fighters.

---

Wow. So everyone's simply upped the ante? guess that's to be expected.

Maury

[This message has been edited by Razer (edited 11-20-2001).][/B][/QUOTE]

posted 11-27- 08:39 AM               

please let us all know