Rapid Age development competition

[Grogyan]

I've downloaded the contest ULM, I think, but the only difference I see is that it points to these forums, is this the correct setup for the contest?

[Chacal]

I'm afraid it will be a judment call: Could the same effect have been achieved with less vertices by a more skilled modeler?

Have a question about the vert count.

What do you consider too high? And, is it based upon the size of the Age? Larger Ages with much content will tend to have a higher vert count and texture amounts, than say a much smaller Age. To what standard will you be bouncing that off off?

The reason I asked is that while making our Age, my team and I have been trying to keep the vert count low, but not at the sacrafice of realism. I want that boulder to look smooth, not jagged. But at the same time, we try to make sure that the Age seems to run smoothly on low end machines too.

Just curious.

[Lontahv]

Details are fine; just try to keep it looking constant. If you have a low-poly rock, with a low-quality textures then just don't put a lever into the rock that has more verts than the rock and a better texture. I know it when I see it; If you go into wire-frame you see a huge opaque area. I'll get you an example of what to avoid.

Also, don't be fooled; just because it runs well on a low-end machine does NOT mean that it won't cause problems later. It makes the link-in SOOO slow if you have an overly Vert-Rich* object.

*term made up by yours truly.


~Lontahv

[andylegate]

Hmmm....

Link in to our Age takes approximately .......3 or 3.5 seconds.

[Lontahv]

Just because your age is small doesn't give you license to make the link-in as long as the Gahreesen link-in. Just try to think about making the verts/inch the same in all parts of your age. Ok, here comes the example; Hold on to your chairs and try not to say NO, NO, NOOOO, NO, NO.

Step 1: download the blend (you'll say; "wow, small download, this age is ok." but no, it's not, it's B-A-D!)
http://lontahv.googlepages.com/bad_age_example.blend


Step 2: Listen to my approach to finding bad ages:



Ok looking age? Those plants look neat.

Press the Z key to reveal the malice.




Plants and buttons look kind of dark compared to the rock quality. But, let's still give this age time it does only have 15367 verts after all.

You zoom in....




Buttons and plants are still that dark color. This age is really bad.

Here's what a "good" age should look like in wire-frame(Yinfara hut, my model):




Step 3: Take a look at the blend file you downloaded earlier(try this for yourself and see how bad that age example I made REALLY is.)



EDIT: Andy, I've seen how you make your ages--I'm sure your age has a good mesh.

~Lontahv

[andylegate]

Thanks for the complement. Only I'm not the only one making our Age. I have two other 3D modelers working too. One who knows blender, the other 3DSMax.

Our Age is not small. Can't say more than that of course. Has 40,009 Verticies, 41,425 faces, for 219 objects. Of course we're not done yet either. Hehehe. Just over 2,000 blender units or so to walk from one end of the other......er that doesn't include the sky box which is much bigger, but I kept the face count on it low.

Still, guess we're doing good if it's that big but only takes about 3 seconds to load.

[Dot]

Thanks, Lontahv, for the explanation and pictures. Does that imply that the vertex density (if that's the right term) needs to be pretty much the same throughout?

What would happen in-game if an avie approached the bad plants? Would the framerate drop? Would there be a sense of lag?

[Chacal]

It depends on the total number of polys the engine would have to draw in the visible scene. So if you're looking at all the plants it could make a difference.
Also, if those objects have collision, it will be a lot worse because the engine will have to calculate collisions on complex objects. Good practice would suggest putting a box collider over each rock and plant. That's 8 vertices per object.

[Aloys]

A quick word about Ahra Pahts shells:

Some of you are doing shells, (which is great ) and Grogyan just asked me what would be the best way to upload them since they need to be bundled with the rest of the Age. Just send me your compiled PRPs, I'll add them to the Age files, update the .sum file, and upload the whole thing to the RAD ULM. Just make sure to send them to me saturday evening so I can update the Age at once and upload it.

[Dot]

Thanks, Aloys. All the maintainer judges will bless you for this!

(I was dreading having to do lots of techie things...)