FIRElod poly counts

[meshcarver 12]

Hi,

I'm in the process of LODing my buildings up for the map I'm doing, and because of the nature of them and the map I want to create, I'm adding more detail to LODs like FIRE and SHADOW.

As it's a STALKER themed map, the buildings are detailed and intricate, and I'm trying to find a balance of Stalker and Arma geometry. I don't want to lose the Stalker "niceties"..!

A fair few of the buldings will be old and collapsing, so there will be things like individual bricks sticking out of holes in walls etc.

Now, I know FIRElods should be as low as possible, but, as I'm planning on having mostly little villages and hamlets, no real huge cities, will I get away with having FIRElod counts of say 1500-2000 tris per house in a village of say 10-15 houses..? (This is a VAST overestimate, as maybe 2 houses will have this count, then maybe 6 will have 1000, then maybe 5 will have 500...)

I'm asking for performance issues here, but I really want the FIRElods to hug the little details like bricks and bent metal etc, so their count goes up...

Again, the layout of the map will be small gatherings of houses in little villages etc, so no real vast urban areas of note.

So yeah, just asking to see if it's an acceptable poly count really, as I've done some tests like placing 16 of these buildings right next to each other in the middle of UTES airstrip and I get no FPS drop..?

Cheers guys,

Marc

[max power 21]

Why don't you just use download and review the example models? For anyone else to give you an answer, they would have to do the same thing, or have done the same thing in the past.

[meshcarver 12]

Hi max,

Aye, ive used the example files a lot, but theres no house really, just that water tower and some vehicles... Or are there other examples you mean man?

[[aps]gnat 28]

The other sample MLODs download. Just about every item from ArmA1 is available.

[vilas 477]

the less polys the better

in GAMES the less means the better (performance, cpu , gpu usage)

only first visual lod is something we polish and take care to look nice

it is game, not MP4 movie played, it must work on usual PCs

try to use primitives like cubic and strech it , than use holes made in Maya in solid cube

keep in mind technical behaviour of object, but the less elements, sections, faces, the better for smooth gameplay

[meshcarver 12]

Thanks for your feedback guys, appreciated.

Aye, i know less is more so to speak, and i take it that no-ones pulled me up on my poly counts estimates to be a good thing hopefully, as those figures are "acceptable" relatively speaking..?

One of the things with these damaged buildings that makes them so good for gameplay, is all the little damages and missing holes you can shoot through so they really do benefit from having the extra firelod love ( read, poly counts though!)

Cheers again guys, and ill check those arma 1 mlods out, but i reckon they could be a bit dated now for poly numbers, but still good for finding templates etc.

[vilas 477]

Arma2 damage effect is unknown afaik, so you wont make your builings the way BIS made them in Arma2, BIS not released some mechanisms implemented in Arma2 or OA, so addonmakers can only guess how it was made,

in Arma1 they simply hide in ground leaving huge or small piece of bricks (wreck model)

[[aps]gnat 28]

ill check those arma 1 mlods out, but i reckon they could be a bit dated now for poly numbers,

No, not really.

[vilas 477]

plus advice , when you make house for this Stalker type of missions, please think like engineer not like artist

some "sparks" looks good for kids, but remember that:

- thin wooden sheet, wooden plate thick for 1 cm or even 2 cm (Mauser from WW2 could kill trough 6 cm of wood or through brick in wall),

- thin metal doors,

- plastic doors

are not barrier for bullets and anyone kill trough them, i know it looks "cool" for kids when they see sparks, but 7.62 rifle bullet can kill you even trough bricks wall,

so such thin elements simply remove from fire geo LOD , leave them in geo lod or viewgeo lod so AI cannot see and player can collide

but doing buildings have in mind bullet , at least pistol bullet or 5.56 , 5.45 bullet , it is Arma, it is not hollywoodish CoD (of course shame we still have no "real" simulation of penetration)

so at least remove from fire geo lods those elements which won't stop parabellum (the biggest problem is with the windows, cause than you HAVE TO define them in cfg hitpoints, cfg animation sources in config, you must write for them model cfg and config like we do for cars otherwise stupid thiny window or stupid tiny wood-glued sheet will protect player even against 12.7 or 25 mm armor piercing projectiles)

if you want your buildings look cool for kids and be accepted among us (some military simulation freaks) you have to learn config of destruction (you can unpack my config for cars and see windows how they were made in cars, also in MLODs i released there is cfg model for car in which you have defined those elements like sklo_l1, sklo_l2, sklo_p3..)

doing geo lod, fire geo lod, viewgeo lod "to the brick" would be nonsense, but remembering about "structure from the point of view of gun" is sense

Edited February 14, 2013 by vilas

[meshcarver 12]

Hi vilas,

Yes, good advice man and thats basically my approach tbh.

Im starting at the high end, as performce pending i can always remove polys later on.

Things like doors and windows wood frame im adding firelod for now (with a wood bisurf so bullets can more or less go straight through and kick up some shrapnel) but will in all likelyhood delete these little parts from the firelod further down the road, which is very easy and quick to do.

Mentioning config of destruction, do you mean when the buildings actually get destroyed? If so, then no mate, im not even thinking about that at this early stage, but, when the entire island is eventually released, ill probably think about doing it then as its a lot of extra work and i want to get the main bulk of content done first.

Thanks very much for your advice!

And thanks also gnat, ill look into them too..

[vilas 477]

there are 2 destruction types:

- one WE KNOW is glass destruction in windows - we can do it, shot in window, breaks glass, unit behind glass is killed, glass is destroyed, when building is shot by tanks it goes down under ground and wreck model is left (dump, heap of trash, heap of bricks known from Arma1)

this destruction works infact as "shot-hide selection" method , you can remove glass, walls elements using this way, lot of work in model cfg, lot of work in config if you want anything MORE than just few windows (just like in city bus i made, there are dozens of windows which can be shot : http://imageshack.us/a/img543/3156/nowy4a.jpg ) ,

- secone is WE DO NOT KNOW is BIS feature in Arma2 which is you shoot from tank to building and wall goes down, bricks lay on ground, half of building is destroyed and second half is okay, probably it was made like those windows but... but... but it would be pain in the ass to do model cfg, model for it, selecting walls in all lods etc.

or something is hardcoded in Arma2.exe itself

multistaged wrecks ? hmmm , i have no idea, afaik whether ONE addon with this was ever released by anyone or even anyone knows how BIS made this feature, cause this work multistage,

so far wrecks community can do (afaik) are single stage - "good conditions model" "wreck model", phase "alive" , phase "dead", not phase "1/3 destroyed, 2/3 destroyed"

but probably your aim as Stalker is not tank fights or bombings, so multistaged buildings destruction is something which probably is not your goal , cause you not focus on heavy artillery , military, tank fights purpose later

Edited February 14, 2013 by vilas

[Messiah 2]

You also have the option (not the same as the destruction Vilas is talking about) of three stages of textures, your normal one for a 'healthy' object, vehicle, whatever, a 50% damage one, and s 100% damage one, which can be combined with the above.

but seeing as your implementation is buildings, then it's probably not quite as relevant for your needs.

[vilas 477]

3 stage texture Marc, that Messiah talks about, we mostly use on "wounds" plus "vehicle dammage look", but you can also apply it to building , but it is just texture look, not "hiding bricks"

[max power 21]

Aye, i know less is more so to speak, and i take it that no-ones pulled me up on my poly counts estimates to be a good thing hopefully, as those figures are "acceptable" relatively speaking..?

No one will ever be able to comment on what is 'acceptible'. We don't know what the models look like, how many there will be, how important they are, what you want to achieve, etc. Moreover I don't think any of us really knows exactly what kind of impact 1000 vs. 2000 polys has in a firegeolod... These things are for you to decide based on the information you're getting from the ArmA 1 example LODs. There are many different kinds of objects in there and you can figure out for yourself if a gas pump needs the name number of polys as BI gave their gas pump.

BI are known for a lot of things, and sparing the polygons is not one of them. Their military vehicles in arma 1 are averaging around 10k+ polys. I don't believe they have gone up very much for ArmA 2.

[Sealife 22]

I did some explanation here on destroying wall but applies to anything (not man)

BIS use a proxy system and even add a Depends if another section is gone , that was a little complicated to explain but all in one config willl help

here it is if any use , unfortuanetly i no longer have the example models

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?129935-Example-of-Damage-to-Model