PRC_Heavy_Z wrote:I'm slightly confused. I've read else where that it is the Triangle count that predicts performance and a Transport Jeep Class/Type vehicle should have ~5500 triangles
Also, for the Landrover, is 9000 polys the count for the "raw" model before shoving it into the BF2 editor? So everything (interior, chassis, wheels etc.) combined has a poly count of 9000?
I'm a novice and get easily confused even as I try to comprehend everything I've read tutorial and forum wise. Please bear with me
I'll do the cages next.
well yes, poly/tri count dose determine one area of the performance impacts the model will have on the game and yes you do want to keep them as low as possible, you dont want to go crazy with modeling every screw as a 18 sided cylinder
poly and tri count are more or less the same thing, they are just different ways of measuring more or less the same thing, like like meters or feet are used to measure distance
There are lots of things that have a impact on performance, textures, col meshes etc.
The thing to remember here is that you can have high detail with lots of tris/polys, with also good performance, the main thing is how you use your polys.
For example, Low GFX users dont use the lod0 mesh, they skip it and use the next LOD down for there main mesh, of lod1. So users with high GFX cards and settings you should reward by lots of high detail when up close, this is where you should use your 9000 polys. Then for lod1, which is used by low gfx users as there main mesh, and high gfx users use it when they are far away from the vehicle, you should cut off all the un needed extra details, like light grills etc, as when you get 50 or so meters away from then, high gfx users are not going to even notice they are not renders unless they are looking for it. So with your LOD1 you can easily cut off anything like 2000 or so polys or w/e just by removing its extra detail, things like wires, etc, small details are the point here, large details you can just keep, but you need to probaly cut there poly count down a little. Then for the next lod, lod2, you will want to remove even more polys for when players are even further away, and same again for lod3 if you have a lod3, probaly best for a vheicle with the kinda view distances we have in PR, in lod2 &/or lod3 you can remove big details like the shove on the side etc.
The main thing you want really low polys on as possible, is your col meshes, as these need to be read by the servers, players etc to determine if your bullets are hitting a object or w/e. These are easy to keep low if you know how, again, remove the core small details from these, I normally have a col0 thats close to my lod1 mesh, but has some big and small differences. Your col1 and col2 meshes can be very simple.
As on to your poly count, no, the info I gave you before was correct.
Like I said before, the Land Rover's geom1 LOD0 mesh, thats its first person main high gfx close distance lod, has 9000 polys, and this is the poly count from the BF2 editor, which would be the same as if I loaded up the max scene, selected the geom1 lod0 mesh and asked for its poly count, if it was all of its lod's poly counts, it would come out at something like 18,000 for guess.
Hope that helps.