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Poly count for LOD levels?

ndicki

ndicki

Charter Member 2016
Can one of the GMAX wizards let me know the poly count for LOD 100 and descending for a single-engined fighter, to get decent FPS? A friend of mine is doing his first model - and no, I'm not telling you what it is!

Thanks!
 
Wizard I ain't, but the SDK gives LOD_100 as 7,500, LOD_90 as 5,000, LOD_70 as 2,500, LOD_50 as 1,250, LOD_25 as 500 and LOD_10 as 50 polys.

That's current for 2002... so you should be able to double these figures easily without leaving lots of people struggling. Mathias' Bf110 for MAW is more than 40,000 polys at LOD_100 iirc.

The real fps killer seems to be texture sheets, number of.
 
Whichever friend, and whatever model, he has my best wishes for the project. Good luck and feel free to ask questions! :wavey:
 
Poly count

Well,

Lets take the Liberators, LOD 100 is around 65,000 for the Coastal Command D with the leigh light. The Lancasters around 34,000 and the PBY 5 around 39,000. Add the virtual cockpits to the PBY and you are at 125,000. To get manageable frame rates and significant numbers of planes in the air no more than about 20,000 for the main LOD 100. What is very important is how you structure the lower LODs. If you can make cuts, delete pieces, and optimize the mesh you can do ok. The LOD 10 for the D Liberator is about 700 polys.

I mention the higher poly models to give you the idea that you can have fairly decent frame rates if you build them with detail but are careful with the LODs.
 
As far as I know, CFS3 engine is texture heavy. You can easily reach 40k+ polys on a LOD100 for a single engine fighter. The trick is to have a well built LOD structure. That means a LOD90 of max 15k, LOD70 of 5k, LOD50 3k, LOD25 1k, LOD10 300-500. If you take MAW Emil for example, it has a 30k LOD100 but a 65k VC, untextured has no impact on fps. If you texture it, be sure to have a clean layout with EVERY little empty space filled on a single sheet for the external. Other textures are just temporary so you can go the extra mile with them as they only display once in a while. (endcaps, gears etc). Also, the more alpha channels you use the worst!
 
Thank you - useful, helpful information there. I'll pass it on, and if he needs help, I'll tell him to get in touch. He really should join this place...

Skinning and so on I expect I'll be doing anyway - when I get the chance! - so I'll make sure the texture map is correct, don't worry. It's quite true that any model which uses more than one sheet for the essential textures gives you single-figure FPS...
 
On a side note, if you want to know how you should not texture a plane, take a look at my very first model, the Re.2005 @ italianwings. It has around 20 texture sheets in the VC and about the same amount externally, it was also the first plane for CFS3 to use 2048x2048 sized textures. Back then I was trying to push the engine to the limits. Strange enough though, I was able to have 8 of them on my screen with just a AMD3000+ and Nvidia 6600GT. LOD's did the trick I guess. Can't stress enough how important they are, more then the full model or VC.

Hairyspin, you've got by far more knowledge then me today! Still, thank you!
 
LoL! I see what you mean! but as the main aircraft textures are on one sheet, it's OK. When it's flown as an AI, the cockpit doesn't affect things.
 
Top secret. But it's one of those aircraft that you either love or hate, and nobody's yet done one for CFS3.
 
don't forget l_wheel_well and r_wheel_well!!!
you can hide heavy poly gears and wheels with that, and animate lower poly ones using keyframe 0-1 and scale animation....it works, trust me.
 
Yes

the wheel well feature is great. That was a big drawback to the Liberator and Catalina. Huge fr issues!
 
Ted, IIRC I spent a few hours trying to hide as much gear struts as possible on the Lib, that's why it has a double hierarchy of so many little bits. But I could be wrong.:salute:

BTW...a tiny little fairy told me that the Stuka is in the works! You guys made more work in 1 year than me in 4 or 5! Hats off!
 
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