posted 01-30- 02:05 PM               

How much is texture memory an issue?

Don't forget that the only ways to show damage are 1) unhide a hidden model (LOD) or 2) replace an exsiting model with another model that shows damage.

Replacing is cool because you can not only change the texture, but the 3D model can change.

If a texture is only refered to by unused models, is it loaded into memory? Or is it loaded when the model replacement happens?

Using transparent textured LODS to show bullet holes sounds very cool, but the trade off is: now you can use a couple of small textures to cover many holes on the plane but: now you have more models. If hidden models do not affect performance then it sounds like a very good idea indeed.

Getting bullet holes aligned will be slightly painful, but not too bad. Bedore I new how to texture map I mad the English insignia on my SE5a out of an "insignia" LOD LoL - a transparent texture. It worked but I had trouble blending it with its surroundings...

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-Sv =FC=

WWI in SDOE!

posted 01-30- 02:24 PM               

On size of the textures, MPosis and myself have tried to keep the paint scheme textures down to no more than 1 full 256x256 texture and never more than half of another texture of similar size. I would be wary of overdoing it, particularly as the F4F is a relatively small plane and you don't have to chase resolution.

The cockpits 109 and Zero cockpits are 2 256x256 textures plus instruments at 64x64 a time and small miscellaneous textures for cockpit walls and frames. Reflections should also be kept down in size as much as possible.

You can see how it all adds up very quickly. The general rule of thumb is that if you can use a smaller texture without impinging significantly on image quality, do so.

posted 01-30- 04:43 PM               

Its not that bad! I think you should do it. Here's how (just like the Fokker)

Do your plane like normal, 1 256x256 texture. Now duplicate that texture and call it textureDmg or whatever. Now just make that one texture map look all damaged - it takes minutes. Now here is how you do the replacement:

Reference an SM file called yourplaneDmg.sm. This should contain all models at root level with no DOFS or prop lists at all, just models. You can use the FokkerDmg.sm as a starting place, or the Se5aDmg.sm for that matter. Just delete all the objects out first or something.

Anyway, start by taking a model, let's say the "LeftWing." Copy and paste that model from your plane to the yourPlaneDmg.sm file. Now change the model name to "LeftWingDmg." Now extract the yourplaneDmg file using Hippie's extractor. Now change all of the texture ID's in that LOD to point to the new yourplaneDmg.tif file. Also be sure to add the yourplaneDmg.tif to the yourplaneDmg.asc file of course.

Now on yourplane.sm you can put a proplist on the "LeftWing" that is like (onDmg 10 (models 'LeftWingDmg)) - this will replace the current wing with the damaged one at that point. Cool.

The real neat part of all this is 1) you need not do any 3D modeling, and 2) you need not do any more texturing!

The painters will love it, they just finish their job, copy the skin into the skinDmg.tif file, and then shoot ot to pieces LOL!

Do it! It works great, especialy if you like damage.