A question for the scenery makers

[Tako_Kichi]

I was going to post this down in the 'Landscapers & Architects' forum but as so few visit down there I thought I'd post it here in the hope it will be more easily seen.

I am currently working on a major airfield make-over which will have several hundred buildings in place when finished. I am making my own custom models for this and have a question regarding the undersides of roof overhangs.

The purist in me says that they should be modelled and textured but most people will never see them if they just fly/move around the place in an aircraft. They would only be seen if you used a vehicle and drove up to the buildings and looked up. As each building has multiple polys used for the overhang undersides the total savings in poly count could be significant given the scope of the project.

So my question is ...... do you other scenery designers/modellers bother modelling and texturing these items or do you just leave them out to save polys?

 

[crashaz]

I multi-res the buildings when the demand for that type of detail is there.

Of course... I have been really struggling with putting rafters in the roof of the hangar... only a groundpounder thinks of such things.

 

[Tako_Kichi]

I multi-res the buildings when the demand for that type of detail is there.

Sorry Crash but my illness, which causes 'brain fogs', must be acting up today as I am totally missing what you mean by 'multi-res'. :isadizzy:

I can understand the polys/texs being there for a large building where they would be taller than a typical aircraft but I am thinking more of a single storey building of say house size with a pitched roof.

 

[Lewis-A2A]

considering the amount of buildings I know your using lazzer, maybe leave them a neutral grey?

 

[spotlope]

I always take into account whether the user is ever likely to even see a detail before spending time on it. For roof overhangs, if I model/texture them at all, I use a small chunk of the texture sheet to do it. Even when you're pretty close up to the building, it's not a feature you're likely to see much of - it's in shadow, anyway. I say do them judiciously and sparingly.

 

[Tako_Kichi]

I always take into account whether the user is ever likely to even see a detail before spending time on it. For roof overhangs, if I model/texture them at all, I use a small chunk of the texture sheet to do it. Even when you're pretty close up to the building, it's not a feature you're likely to see much of - it's in shadow, anyway. I say do them judiciously and sparingly.

Thanks for taking the time to reply Bill and I do understand your point.

On the two buildings I built so far I did model and texture the underside of the roof overhang and I used a common part of the texture sheet to drop those parts onto. As I am close to finishing a third building it occurred to me that I could be wasting valuable time messing around slicing the model up just so that I can keep the overhang undersides when it is faster just to delete the entire underside of the roof in one go and move on. As I said above these are currently for single storey 'hut type' structures so it is extremely unlikely that anyone would ever see under there anyway.

When it comes to modelling the two storey and larger buildings I will of course consider what will be seen.