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Author
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Topic: Damage visualization questions
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bjorn
Pilot
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posted 08-10- 12:15 PM
  
I just wonder, fellow modelers, how you prefer to visualize damage. I guess it depends on the kind of damage.What methods are there? I can think of two, model replacement and model coating. Coating appears to me to be much simpler, but then transparent surfaces isn't frame rate's best friend, and it makes holes impossible. An advantage is that it allows layering damages on top of each other. This seems to be the way to go for damages like oilsmear, though, since you can smear the canopy as well as the fuselage by a cleverly designed coating LOD. Model replacement seems to be what most people use, as it allows holes, bent shapes, etc. Seems to be hell as far as texture mapping goes, and makes layering more or less impossible (Say at damage level 3 there's a 50% chance of dmg replacement A1 and 50% chance of replacement A2, at level 8 we want another replacement, but which depends on if the previous one was A1 or A2. Anyone knows a way of achieving that? I'd really appreciate a solution, since I like the idea of using obProb's for replacements, and nest them at different damage levels.) Are replacement models a burden to SDOE when not active? They shouldn't be, but has anyone tested? If they are, what number of replacements seems reasonable for an object? Are holes bad for frame rates?
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/Bjorn. IP: Logged |
Raider
Pilot
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posted 08-10- 11:33 PM
bjorn, I thought about making a lod that is just some round black dots that look like bullet holes. Put several in a row in one lod. Place several of the lods on a wing and make them hidden. When one is hit make it unhide. This should look like a string of bullet holes on that part of the wing.This way you could still call a damage model replacement and still see bullet holes.
The problem is that you may be placing a flat lod (string of bullet holes) on a curved object (wing or fuselage).
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Raider 33rd~GS
Raiders Site
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bjorn
Pilot
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posted 08-11- 09:30 AM
Hmmm... gives me an idea. Thanks Raider. How bad would it be to have one object for each bullet "hole"? I could make super objects, that just place several of these in a string, following a curved surface if necessary.Making one LOD, I see two alternaticves. Either make that a very simple rectancle LOD with a huge damage bitmap that's mostly transparent (a frame rate and texture memory killer) or have it repeat the same very small bitmap over and over. The latter seems better, but would (if I haven't misunderstood things, which I may) have the same poly count as having individual objects for each bullet hole would. Am I right? If this is the case, then having hidden bullet hole objects, peppered over the aircraft, unhidden on damage, may be the way to go. Ideas, opinions?
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/Bjorn.
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Laika 801
Pilot
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posted 08-11- 01:17 PM
The only problem I see are FPS issues. I.e you come with a plane, about 700 Polys - good, now you add "bullet-hole-lods", each hole-lod got about 5 to 6 triangles. For a good visual effect i.e. on the wingtips you would add about 10 to 15 holes on both sides (??) for maximum damage (before the point, where the wingtip detaches), would make about 75 tri's. for the wingtip+plus maybe some more hits on other parts (plus smoke ?). Hmmm  might be a problem, might be not. In the end it depends on the plane itself, how many parts, how many polys etc.Someone should test it out ! LK IP: Logged |
Raider
Pilot
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posted 08-11- 10:18 PM
I think that a string of holes would be best, for two reasons; 1. The current guns only fire a damaging bullet every other round. 2. It seems that the bullets are spaced too far apart anyway, in other words, when you fly through a spray of machine gun fire you should have several (5 or 10) hits, but instead you only register 1 or maybe two. Just a suggestion, also we could give the bullet damage lods a very low switch in distance. That way you could see it on your plane, but you could probably not see bullet holes on another plane anyway unless you were very close. This should solve the frame rate problem. ------------------
Raider 33rd~GS
Raiders Site
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bjorn
Pilot
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posted 08-12- 03:24 AM
Raider, good idea on the switch in distance. Maybe it should be visible from another plane, but then of course, only if it's darned close.Laika, it won't be real holes, more like hit labels, a black dot. Every dot would be made up of a very small hand made LOD of 1 poly, probably with 6 or 8 corners. What's the smallest bitmap you can use? Is it 16x16 or is 8x8 OK?
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/Bjorn. IP: Logged | |
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