Dean Notes: 2/2/03

Hey Mic, welcome back!


> Does anyone know if there a max. number of points and polygons you
> can have per object? (I ask this because when I work in FST (Flight
> Sim Toolkit) the editor allows a max. of 250 polys).

There is a max number of coordinates you can enter, but it's pretty high.
Can't remember the exact number though. The real issue is the polygon count
which is a very sad and inadequate 200 max! However, there is a way to
"cheat" and get a lot more polys if you know the trick, more on that down
below.

> SUB-OBJECTS/ANIMATED OBJECTS:
>
> I was wondering if anyone ever got a handle on incorporating sub-
> objects, landing gears, etc. Is there any tutorial info. out there
> on this area?

No tutorials, but someone did a great job of dissecting the subobjects when
I got the complete airplane prop library from Adrian Stephens a couple of
years ago. I'll dig up the numbers and post all of the info I have on this
topic a little later tonight. It may take a while to type it all in.

I've found that SI Tools just hates animated subobjects though. Load the
Spitfire plane that comes with SIT and delete a subobject and then redo it
exactly that same way and the program usually goes crazy. I think the
programmers may have installed subobjects outside of SIT through some means
we have never seen before.

Subobjects will allow you exceed the max number of polygons by a WIDE margin
though! Matt Shoemaker kinda got it when he said, "I think that's one reason
why Dean's TIE Fighter was in two parts though, the other being so you could
blow it up." Originally my TIE had a polygonal cockpit. Spheres take up a
helluva lot of polygon count so the cockpit was one prop and then the wings
were attached separately. I was very unsatisfied with having to have two or
three props for a single TIE and to also have some horrible sorting problems
as well. So I went back and replaced the polygonal sphere with a graphical
sphere. This brought the polygon count down by at least 100 polys. Then I
built the wings around the new cockpit and now had a TIE that came in one
piece.

What this has to do with subobjects is this. The new TIE also had some bad
sorting problems, but instead of see-thru type problems it had the
dissappearing polygon problem. The solution was to bust the TIE into two
props and then re-attach the other half as a subobject. This did the trick
perfectly and now there's only one slight sorting problem that is nearly
unnoticeable.

This trick also worked, but to a much more limited degree, with my Millenium
Falcon. It's still ended up being multiple pieces but it went from, I think,
6 pieces down to 3 not counting the quad-guns and radar dish.

Dean.