Poly limits?

[bnewton81]

I am trying to understand how many faces i can have in a given age before it will be noticeably slowed? For Uru of course. I am using Drizzle and CC. Blender is my main 3d program. Also I am wondering if the cap on polys is overall or if it is just the viewable faces? Like if i use mipmapping (which i do not quite understand) doesn't that keep from loading all the faces? I mean if i use mipmapping, can i make as large an age as I want? I am getting much better at using textures to effect detail over high poly. I think this is the way to go, but am still learning. I need help in what i should be learning. Like what are the important things to understand if i want to make ages? I am of the opinion that learning only what i must is preferable to trying to learn everything. Anyway, any comment is welcome. VIVA LA D'NI!!

[Chacal]

I don't know about the visible part, but polys with collision will kill your Age quickly. Many Writers will simply add collision detection to their visible polys, and this slows down the game because everytime your avatar moves, the game has to check for collision with all those polys.
Writers should do as Cyan does: make very simple, invisible objects just for collision detection. Those make up the floor and walls of the playable area.
For example, a stairway has many polys, but the physical stairway should just be a single, invisible plane set at an angle. That's just two triangles for collision detection.

[Egon]

Writers should do as Cyan does: make very simple, invisible objects just for collision detection.

Additionally: You can make custom colider by adding property "type" equall "collider" - that will automaticly make it invisible in URU.

I assume by defining "Bounds" = "Box" I achive in fact the same result as I would make custom collider in shape of the box?

[Chacal]

No, that defines how collisions are calculated. Don't ask me how.

[bnewton81]

I already thought of doing the invisible collider. Glad to know that it is a good idea, as Cyan does it. I did not know that the collisions being placed on faces would slow the age. I should have realized this as if makes perfect sense, but it never occurred to me. Thank you for giving me more to think about.

[bnewton81]

As i think i understand Mipmapping, you can apply a sort of stencil to it to allow for control of what is rendered in higher or lower resolution. I may not be understanding it correctly. It makes sense to me that if you use this function that you should be able to have as many polys as you like, because they are not all being rendered. Only the ones within a given radius around the player. Blender is an inspiring program, but it makes my head hurt almost everyday.

[Paradox]

As i think i understand Mipmapping, you can apply a sort of stencil to it to allow for control of what is rendered in higher or lower resolution. I may not be understanding it correctly. It makes sense to me that if you use this function that you should be able to have as many polys as you like, because they are not all being rendered. Only the ones within a given radius around the player. Blender is an inspiring program, but it makes my head hurt almost everyday.

No, mipmapping refers to texture quality. Textures closer to the camera are rendered at higher resolutions, decreasing in quality with distance. This is entirely separate from number of polys.

Some things to keep in mind:

• Use separate meshes for your colliders, and use convex hulls where possible.
• Use textures for your mesh detail, not the mesh itself.
• Use visregions to hide parts of the scene that aren't visible.
• PyPRP has a limit around 32000 vertices for a single span (if I recall correctly), but you can split things into multiple spans.

[bnewton81]

what are visreagions? I assume they are visible regions, but you make it sound like it is a function. How does this work? Could you explain this in greater detail. I guess i don't know near as much as i thought i did. Is there a way to see your bounds? I don't want to have to load everything into uru just to find that my colliders are way too far outside the edges of my mesh to look realistic upon contact. I have so many questions! Oh, is there a better way to connect with age writers than this forum? I find that i learn in direct proportion to the number of available ppl there are to answer my questions. =)

[bnewton81]

Oh shoot! Sry, i forgot to ask you about what you mean by "a single span" and how you can divide a span? What do you mean by this. Thank you so much for your help! Really.

[ametist]

what are visreagions? I assume they are visible regions, but you make it sound like it is a function. How does this work?

The wiki here is a great resource, you can also use the search-function in the builders-section on this forum.

Is there a way to see your bounds? I don't want to have to load everything into uru just to find that my colliders are way too far outside the edges of my mesh to look realistic upon contact.

It's a very good way to learn actually - build in blender, load it up into your Uru offline, look, take notes, change in blender, load again, look etc.