Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!news From: Alex Herbert Newsgroups: scee.yaroze.programming.3d_graphics Subject: Re: Efficient Object Modelling Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 17:20:32 +0000 Organization: PlayStation Net Yaroze (SCEE) Lines: 66 Message-ID: <36CAFA60.C0A88FC8@ndirect.co.uk> References: <7a3ea7$7op10@chuka.playstation.co.uk> Reply-To: aherbert@ndirect.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Host: th-usr02-57.ndirect.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I) Daniel Abels wrote: > Hi everyone! Hello! > What are you guys using to make your 3d models? I know some > people are using 3d Studio Max, however, isn't it a bit inefficient > for this sort of work? It is a 3d rendering program after-all and clipping > unwanted triangles probably isn't one of it's strongest features. > I'm also using 3D Studio MAX, and I agree. > I have been fiddling about with a editor called Ac3d: > > http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/users/andy/ac3d.html > > It seems to handle this thing a little bit better, but it's still not great > Try extruding a circle and exporting the file as triangle coords... > It seems to produce about 3-4 times the information required. > > Not good for our line of work eh!? > > I'm seriously thinking about going back to the ol' grid-paper, which > may leave me in a comatosed state after modelling, but the results > may be worth it (hmmm... my sanity vs. a quick playstation program...) > Sounds fun! > Perhaps I'm being a bit too pessimistic, but budgeting for about 1500 > triangles (texture-mapped and light-sourced) per frame, with 50 frames > per second (PAL) for a grand total of 75,000 triangles per second, may > even be too much for our Playstations to handle? > Can anyone deny or confirm this (I know what the advertising says, > but lets be realistic!) > Hmm, you may be pushing it a little. I've been close to 100,000 polys/sec but it really depends on the data. > I'm aiming for a low resolution too (256x240) which should (?) help > things... The resolution doesn't really make that much difference. The CPU/GTE seems to be the bottle neck, and the libs don't help. The GPU can usually draw quicker than the CPU/GTE can calculate. Use quads wherever you can and don't go OTT with the lighting. Remember, GsSortObject4() has to recalculate all the vertices and normals which are used in a poly, for each poly drawn. So, a quad which is flat lit will need 4 vertices and 1 normal to be calculated. However, a quad which is built from 2 triangles and is G shaded will need 6 vertices and 6 normals to be calculated - the 2 vertices and normals which are shared by both tris will be calculated twice! Oh, and make sure your textures fit nicely in the GPU cache, otherwise you'll be wondering if someone installed Windows on your PS while you weren't looking! Herbs