Psyrus wrote:Hey, perhaps a stupid question but when modeling a static, is is best to have as much on on one 'object'/'editable poly' as possible or like the door handles/hinges/etc in the tutorial, is the separation ok? Are there any inefficiencies added or is it completely acceptable either way?
I ask because in theory I could get away with less polygons if I didn't have make it as one big object (for example having the window shutters as a separate object & then aligning them with 0px difference rather than extruding out from the main building) since you have to do all that 3-4 verts for things you extrude out of surfaces. Another advantage is that I can mirror separate objects whereas from my limited understanding, I can't do that with subpolys on an object?
It depends what exactly you mean by septate object.
If you mean a totally separate staticobject that's exported with a diffrent name and placed on the main building in the BF2 Editor then in most cases that is not a very good idea as that means extra draw calls etc which harms performance... There are only a few exceptions when this should be done but certainly not for something like window shutters
If you mean a separate elements, ie, its attached to the main object, but its not welded up to the main object, so when you use the element selection tool and you select the window shutters or w/e, it only selects them and not the main building, that's ok to an extent but in most cases you really should weld an object up to prevent zfighting and it also gives you a much cleaner model in most cases. Door hinges for example is something you really do need to weld up since they are so thin, if you didn't weld them up then you would get a load of zfighting between the door and the hinge.
I'm pretty sure it goes into this and in more detail in the tut...
Psyrus wrote:Oh and if I wanted to make a corrugated roof, can that be done with normal maps or are they for really subtle bumps and stuff, not like 5-8cm waves in a surface? Would it even be worth it on a roof that people most likely won't even really see up close? No way I would bother with polygons because it would basically add 25% to my poor model.
When faced with these type of questions my advice is to always look at other objects in BF2/PR and look at how they have been made, as well as also look at possible textures you can use and how they have been used on other objects and how you can use them.
With a corrugated roof, most vBF2 and even PR objects just use a flat surface with the texture and normal maps ye although on a few objects they have been made a little 3D, like on my HESCO Sanger which I mainly made them 3D for that because you could go right up close to them and under them and they would have looked pretty odd being 2D.
You really need to decide for yourself what's best for your object, but if its really out of the way and you want to keep tri count down, go for a flat, 2D surface with normal maps.
