To Model or to Texture?

Postby electroglyph » Sun Apr 08, 2007 8:57 am

One of the things you have to constantly consider when creating a game is how much detail do you need to make the environment real. More detail is better but it comes at a price. Bigger geometries create more surfaces to move and calculate. Even if it is a scene object like a building the game must calculate lights from when your avitar moves. Bigger objects use more processor time to render. This can slow your game or reduce the number of players you system can handle at one time. They also increase the size of your download. Some networks that limit bandwidth could shut off your file after only a few players download it.

When building models you need to consider how detailed does the object have to be. The buttons on an avitar's jacket may only be 4 pixels wide in the game. It isn't really necessary to model the holes and the threads that attach it. A bowl or cup might have a detailed design that your character could see. To model it might take a Mb or more. If you can only download a 30Mb file then you can't sacrifice streets and buildings for a better bowl. If you have only streets and buildings with no objects your scene will be empty looking.

One good solution is to texture a simple object with a complex design. Any object your character can't get around is a good candidate. A good example would be the cities around Annonay. When you swim out you see they are just billboards. Distant trees, mountains, and close up objects like crates are all good candidates for complex textures.
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Postby electroglyph » Sun Apr 08, 2007 9:05 am

For my example I'm going to make a complex packing crate. I decided to make it out of metal slats attached with screws. Here's a perspective view with one side modeled.
Image
This one side comes in at exactly 1Mb. With six sides to make a full box that comes to 6Mb per cube. If I limit my download size to 30Mb this means my entire age can consist of just 5 cubes.
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Postby electroglyph » Sun Apr 08, 2007 9:30 am

I can create a plain cube in obj format for just 3.77 Kb. I can put 265 of these in a scene for every one fully modeled cube. Flat cubes look very dull however. The answer is to make a texture from the detailed cube and apply it to a plain cube.

First I took the model of the side I created into Bryce. I applied corroded brass texture to the pieces. I had modeled this piece flat so I used the top view and rendered this face six times to make the six different sides of the box.

Image

I set the sunlight straight at noon for the top and bottom faces. To make the four sides I set the sun position to the top edge. Making the shadow fall across the edge gives the impression of texture and depth where it really doesn't exist.
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Postby electroglyph » Sun Apr 08, 2007 9:50 am

In between each render I also offset the materials on the object. I did this so that all four sides would not be identical. I also randomly rotated the screw heads between each render. It was time consuming but well worth the effort.
Image

For detailed instructions on how to get into the materials editor read the Lets make a Volcano tutorial. Once there click on the top left button circled in the picture to open the box shown. Click on the bottom control circled and drag to change the X, Y, Z offsets from zero or just click on the number. A white box will show up and you can type a number from the keyboard.

Note that the screws have a different offset from the frame and from the backplate of the side. This helps to identify that these are different objects. If the offsets were the same the objects could easily blend into each other. You could also use different materials such as steel screws with brass plates.
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Postby electroglyph » Sun Apr 08, 2007 9:58 am

Once I had all six sides I took the texture map for my flat cube.

The first thing I did was apply the brass texture as a background to the texturemap in paintshop. This keeps white lines from standing out if the textures for the sides are not exactly placed on the map. The next thing I did was to save the file under a different name egboxbrass.jpg. I did this so if I made a mistake I still had the original map.

Image

I sized the two images so the Bryce renders fit the squares in my box map. Then I cut and pasted the sides onto the map.
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Postby electroglyph » Sun Apr 08, 2007 10:10 am

So here's the final result. With a little rotating and shifting I was able to create this 8 box stack for just a little over 30Kb of mesh. A really detailed texture of 440KB brought the total file size up to 470K. Remember I can use the same one texture over and over.

Image

If I had built every box I would have 8Mb just in objects. I would still have to texture these. I could use this same technique to build an Indiana Jones warehouse full of crates, city skyscrapers, etc. Any detail that can be baked on to a surface rather than modeled can be used to make your final age bigger.
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Postby mar » Sun Apr 08, 2007 1:31 pm

Thanks for this excelent explanation. I can used the information you gave quith good. ;)
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