Prospective Remake Modelers Look Here

actually, max's new normal editor is pretty hot... you can trick some stuff but forcing normals to match another surfaces normals. but it's a pain, an its manual work verted by vertex. doable for super low poly tho. but that's not really our case... at least i hope it's not :).

-scheherazade
 
Is there a free program that you would recomend? At the moment I don't feel that I am serious enough about modelling to pay for one.
 
i would say gmax... just cause i use max.

blender is nice, but doesn't give you all the manipulation features max does (or any complete studio for that matter).

you'd prolly be better off learning gmax.

goto a place like : http://www.planetquake.com/polycount/

check out some tutorials...

maybe find some about 'editable mesh' online... etc

it'll hold your hand through the first few steps.

ALTHOUGH, if you quickly pick up making simple objects in blender and THEN move to gmax, you'd prolly be better off. blenders interface will be clean and simple. won't scare you.

but all in all, a proper package is good to know and be able to use.

-scheherazade
 
my bad,t hat last post i meant to say wings3d wherever i say blender... late might, tired. etc. sorry bout' that.

-scheherazade
 
yah, that is one issue.
they won't let you putput to 3ds... so that you can't then move your stuff to a proper copy of max.

although you can use md3 instead and it's just fine cause it's esentially the same format. plus everythig and its cousin supports the quake3 format.

you cna always directly convert from md3 to 3ds with deep exploration.
hmm... i have a feeling that wings3d reads md3 too... i swear i've seen a quake3 model made in it. but i could be mistaken.

-scheherazade
 
"Dirty" Modelling Techniques

In an attempt to save triangle faces I developed some really "dirty" techniques. Now I am not sure whether such techniques are "allowed" for game models.
An example is provided at the bottom:

Instead of the left object (12 vertices, 5 quads = 10 triangles) I could also achieve the same (?) result with the right object (4 vertices, 2 overlapping quads = 4 tris).

As long as all these vertices remain in a plane this should not be a problem for the game engine.
Problems could arrise if the two quads have a different color/texture. Sometimes one could probably see the color/texture of the area change where faces are overlapping.
And since those faces are not connected, could there a "light leak" if the vertices have a tiny offset in the z-direction (into the screen) due to precision errors of the game engine?
So the simple question is, am I allowed to do that?
 

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hmm.....i wouldn't if you're worried about shaving polys....then shave them somewhere else...that just sounds and looks like bad modeling IMO. (and i mean to offense by that)
 
And floating point precision issues will come into play, and that's bad.
Z-buffer precision issues will also influence the rendering, and that's worse.
And notice one thing: face count is not as important as vertex count, IMHO (I'm not well versed in modelling, but I know how things work in the hardware).
Rasterizing two faces takes about the same time as rasterizing four or eight of them covering the same area, since the overhead is almost deprecable. The issue is transforming the vertex coordinates from model space to worldspace and then to normalized device space (and finally to screen coordinates). (I separated each stage to exaggerate a little, ;) - couldn't help it ). So, transforming twice as many vertices will take twice the time. The "optimized" way uses 8 vertices (where did you get you were using 4?), while the "unoptimized" way uses 12. Not that much improvement for such an uncommon situation, given the precision issues it rises. I think it's not worth it.
 
Yes, there really are 8 vertices. (counting is a hard job ;) )
I also think that the above example is not good modelling. But I felt that I was driven into such things due to having a limit of only a few hundred tris for a rather complex shape. So do I understand that right, that the really important number is the number of vertices and not face count?
(In the modelling threads people are always talking about face counts. I only did non-game 3D-arts up to this point, where the face count isn't really such a big limiting issue. One might have millions and still render a frame in a coulpe of minutes.)

What about bodys clipping through each other in order to save the vertices at the intersections and the resulting additional triangles?
 

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you can have them intersect/go through one another with no real issue. i usually perform a quick cut operation though so that the one object doesn't go through, but appears to go through. (oh, and face count is the standard for counting stuff in games modeling...worry about that). its the illusion of being attached, without being attached.

and also, trust me when i say this....any shape with the right amount of thought and time can be achieved with low poly....i should post up some of my original designs. in fact, yeah..i'll do that here in a bit.


edit: here's the hull section to one of the my original designs. when you're trying to model something, prioritize what needs to looka certain way, where the emphasis of detail goes. usually, if i'm modeling a complex area, i set aside at a minimum 1500 (3000 tris) aside for it and whittle it down. i go through crap loads of revisions until its as efficient as humanly possible without degrading the overall. also, don't be afraid to use a little sub-patch (or mesh smooth for you max heads, especially you max folk....max's meshsmooth is freaking god like) to acheive a desired look. on a particularly advanced organic shape, use it. use it sparinly. i actually used lw's sub-patches to build the bulk of my strakha, and also to form the hull of my Salthi. i cleaned the excess and then continued on my merry way building em. i need to do up a sub-patch tut one of these days i think...its insanely poweful if used correctly. oh, and tri-count for that hull piece is only 1766.
 

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It is the face count the usual way of measuring things. But any way I can think of, it's the vertex count the one that measures performance. Anyone knows for certain if I'm right or wrong? I could do performance tests... but usually vertices are 3xtri count. Perhaps that's why people measure with triangles: there's no way to decrease vertex count below a point. And perhaps because of the high vertex reuse is that triangle strips are so efficient. Am I talking nonsense?
 
all i know is that my key priority when modeling is keeping it under a certain face count which in turn keeps it under a certain vertex count. tri stripping actually is important. i learned that recently, wasn't aware of it actually. if you tri strip the model correctly it just makes things easier on the engine or something.

also, in as long as i've been modeling and talking to Howard Day, it is always face count you are to be concerned with.
 
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