form-fitting shields

Post by **jackS** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 6:23 pm

peteyg wrote:Yeah, VS supports quads.

... and even trifans and tristrips - but not too many of the models use them

CainFA · Post by **CainFA** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 6:53 pm

Yeah, VS supports quads

Wait, does this means that when, in the wiki, they say that capship should have a polycount of 4096 they are talking of 4096 quads not tris?

If this is the case, then i did bother myself trying to have less than 5000 tris

.

... and even trifans and tristrips

What are those?

pincushionman · Post by **pincushionman** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 2:00 am

The high-poly versions of both are indeed triangulated -- the way I'm making the models, I do a lot of stretching and pulling at individual verticies, so I'd end up with very few planar quads -- I hated to do it, but it's really a matter of necessity. I've been very careful to avoid tris in the low-LOD's, though.

And I'm not really sure how much it affects speed in the end; I assume it may affect fillrate, but there are the same number of verticies either way.

Oh, and for all those interested, and the Huldra is a b!@7ch to do, and the Lodur isn't going to be much easier. But expect the former to be done day after tomorrow.

guest_cvs_compile_guy · Tue Jul 27, 2004 4:32 am

In the end, your GPU converts quads into two tris, but it usually does it blindingly fast. Of course, GPU designers hate put quad support on their chips "what's next, quints?"
Tri-fans and tri-strips are triangles that happen to share edges in either a fan (think oriental fan) shape or a long thin ribbon shape.
__ _______
\|/ or |\/\/\/\/\|[/u]

pincushionman · Post by **pincushionman** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 4:50 am

Is there a way to take advantage of trifans and tristrips? I mean, do you have to force a model to use them in a particular way, or can you get lucky and have the mesher recognize it by itself? Or do I have any clue what I am talking about?

-pincushionman

pincushionman · Post by **pincushionman** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 4:21 am

The Rlaan ships aren't going to be near as efficient with the shield polys, as you can see:

The high-poly mesh here looks *okay* with 2.5k polys. It looks pretty good smoothed again, but that's over 7700 polys. I'll probably send JackS supersmoothed versions of all the shields later, but they may not end up in-game yet.

Does this shield look okay, or does it need to be "looser (i.e. the shield stretches more between the sections)?" If you all think that would be better, I'll have to start over, but that's not a big problem.

Post by **hurleybird** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 6:03 am

Humm, super high res versions would be cool to have in-game. It would be easy aneough to set up a LOD, and about the only time the would be used would be when the target is right in front of you.

Gorrünwe · Post by **Gorrünwe** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 7:02 am

By seeing the form-fitting shields on to this rlaan ship, i wonder if ALL vessels must be equiped with it.

Look at this rlaan ship: with the form-fitting shield, the wing<->cockpit junction becomes a weakness. Do you think it could resist when having a chock from a torpedo from exemple?

In my opinion, this new sort of shield may be applied to massive form ships (llama is a good example, mule, ox, aeon, aelar also)

Post by **MamiyaOtaru** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 8:17 am

Does a form fitting shield model really need to have more polygons than the ship it is wrapped around? I'm only guessing, but I doubt that rlaan model has more than 2000 polygons. It certainly doesn't have 7.7k. Anyway, shields are usually only seen for brief flashes, I don't think they need to be so intricate.

Despite the above, I do like your shields a lot. They'll add a ton to the game

pincushionman · Post by **pincushionman** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 4:51 pm

The hi-res mesh for the Huldra itself has a hell of a lot of polys. Most are in the back, though, not around the shell. Load it up in Wings3d and take a look - you'll understand if I didnt' explain it well. I think it's somewhere around 15k.

strangelet · Post by **strangelet** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 5:26 pm

OH SHIT! THERE I WAS TEARING ALL THE DETAIL OFF MY MODELS TO HIT POLY COUNT TARGETS AND VS SUPPORTS QUADS!!!! ARRRRGH!!!!!!!

i was SO PROUD of my new found lo-tri modelling abilities and they're all for naught!

this means the poly count of all models i'm gonna submit will half!

and OMG new ones will be twice as detailed

Anax · Post by **Anax** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 1:26 am

strangelet wrote: this means the poly count of all models i'm gonna submit will half!

and OMG new ones will be twice as detailed

I think i speak for all of us when i say: w00t!

pincushionman · Post by **pincushionman** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 4:50 am

Captain Barbosa wrote:...And thirdly, the Code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules...

Same with the polycounts in the wiki. The actual rules for polycounts ought to be "the lowest number of polys you need to make it look good." We can always make a number of LOD meshes to preserve framerate...and if your high-poly model is really high-count, we can always just use the lower-count meshes and keep the really good one around for when its polycount is no longer an issue.

guest · Post by **guest** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 2:31 am

considering that a Rlaan's hull is painted with micro-shields, I'd think their main shields would be as form-fitting as possible.

Post by **hellcatv** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 11:37 pm

can't wait until we have all those shields in

pincushionman · Post by **pincushionman** » Fri Aug 06, 2004 2:51 am

Huldra shields have been transmitted to the MoI. Contract calls for work to proceed on the Lodur immediately.

Post by **jackS** » Fri Aug 06, 2004 3:03 am

received

pincushionman · Post by **pincushionman** » Sun Aug 08, 2004 2:14 am

Lodur! LODUR! (Hmmm...My picures seem to keep getting bigger and bigger!)

[EDIT] On the way to the Ministry as we speak. So I have done the Clydesale, the Mule, the Huldra, and the Lodur. What are the next ships that deserve sheild treatment? I can't guarantee I can start them for a while, as I have some business in Real Life(tm) to take care of.

Post by **jackS** » Sun Aug 08, 2004 9:28 am

The four ships should now have form fitting shields if one updates data from cvs.