B3D vs 3DS and X
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/B3D vs 3DS and X
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| Ok, assume you have a soldier model that's very low poly, and has very few and short animations. The style of game is outdoors, so lighting will mostly be a single directional source. You need to be able to have many of them on screen at once, not quite RTS many but probably 10+ on average. As for polycount, we're talking anything from 500-750 per soldier. B3D animation seems to really bog the system down, with suprisingly few models. MD2 is fast but looks horrible. So, in this situation, would 3DS or X formats be better? What are their limits/advantages? This is for future reference, actually. I'm finally approching completion on my first game and I've already made plans for the second, so I need to know this kind of stuff in advance... -Jonathan |
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| ..I find out MD2 quite good if done properly..and extremely fast.. |
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| i'm told b3d is the only one that supports smooth bone skinning. |
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| ..how many bones you have in your B3D character Orc?? |
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| Yes b3d is the only format supported for boned animation which gives the best results visually but can be a bit slow due to its DirectX7 implementation. In DirectX7 the CPU needs to calculate vertex positions. With later versions of DirectX this caculation is done by the GPU which makes it a lot faster. As mentioned the polycount and the number of bones will play a part. Vertex weighting can also slow down things by increasing the number of calculations required. 3DS or X format models can be used but only using segmented hierarchial mesh animation which is a lot faster and is great for mechanical type structures but not so great for humanoids as you can "see" the seams between segments. A possible option, especially in an RTS type system for viewing the models from very high up etc, would be to use a mixture of both in a kind of LOD system where you could display the boned character when up close and the mesh animated model when far away. For very far shots you could even go as far as creating 2d animated sprites from your 3d models. Spriteforge does this very well and PaceMaker also has an option to creste 2d animstrips from your 3d models. |
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| MD2's rule for this sort of thing. If you do them properly, they can be very effective. |
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| But AFAIK you cannot pick md2, nor access their vertices, right? |
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| JFK: I believe you're right. They are looked at as totally different than other mesh formats in B3D. Naughty Alien: I haven't started work on this particular project, so I have none at the moment. Ricky Smith: So by segmented hierarchial animation you mean tomb raider/jedi knight style, right? If so, I really don't have a problem with that, for this style of game. In fact I was trying to figure out a way to do that with B3D not long ago, I wish I had known there was an easier way. Nobody mentions X format at all. Is it really poor for animation? Thanks for all the replies! -Jonathan |
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| b3d can do masked animations, 3ds and x animations can't. calculating the vertex coords is easier on 3ds and x. calculation vertex coords on anim b3d is almost impossible :P |
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