Grumman A-6

[redtail58554]

Something I decided to try. Have always had a love for this aircraft. I used to know a former B/N that flew a couple of tours in Vietnam for the Marines in one of these. The stories he told were incredible.



Stats as of right now per Modelconverterx
Triangles-1754
Texture Vertices-4968

Don't know which number is more important. Maybe someone can shed some light on this and tell me which is more important?

[John Young]

Looks like another good start for a good looking model Matt. Have you managed to progress your previous models or do you need any help to move forward?

To answer your question about polygons (mesh triangles) V texture vertices, it's texture vertices that really matter. Have a look at this Microsoft article:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/torgo3000/ar ... atter.aspx

Your polygon count is about right for a first LOD airframe, but that will escalate of course once you cut out the cockpit, make the canopy, add a pilot and seat and produce the gear/wheels, never mind the load-out.

I'm not sure how you were able to measure the texture vertex count without doing the mapping first. Or is it just a case of Blender not showing the texture applied in your screen shot?

Does Blender allow you to weld common texture vertices like Gmax does ? That's a really useful facility to optimise performance and is the key lesson from the Microsoft article, although there's much more scope to apply it in scenery design than in aircraft design.

The other performance criteria is draw calls. One draw call is usually one part using one texture sheet. To minimise draw calls, use 1 texture sheet for the whole model and attach all unanimated sub parts together to reduce the part count.

I have produced a tutorial some time ago on optimising draw calls/Tverts if you would like it. It's for Gmax, but the principles will apply to Blender, I'm sure.

John

[redtail58554]

Looks like another good start for a good looking model Matt. Have you managed to progress your previous models or do you need any help to move forward?

To answer your question about polygons (mesh triangles) V texture vertices, it's texture vertices that really matter. Have a look at this Microsoft article:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/torgo3000/ar ... atter.aspx

Your polygon count is about right for a first LOD airframe, but that will escalate of course once you cut out the cockpit, make the canopy, add a pilot and seat and produce the gear/wheels, never mind the load-out.

I'm not sure how you were able to measure the texture vertex count without doing the mapping first. Or is it just a case of Blender not showing the texture applied in your screen shot?

Does Blender allow you to weld common texture vertices like Gmax does ? That's a really useful facility to optimise performance and is the key lesson from the Microsoft article, although there's much more scope to apply it in scenery design than in aircraft design.

The other performance criteria is draw calls. One draw call is usually one part using one texture sheet. To minimise draw calls, use 1 texture sheet for the whole model and attach all unanimated sub parts together to reduce the part count.

I have produced a tutorial some time ago on optimising draw calls/Tverts if you would like it. It's for Gmax, but the principles will apply to Blender, I'm sure.

John

Hey John,
Taking a break from the warbirds at the moment. Too many things I didn't like with the models. I am still learning better ways to do things. In answer to your question about how I got the stats. I exported the model to .3ds format. Then imported into ModelconverterX.

As far as I know, Blender does have tools to do quite a bit of cleanup of Tverts.

[John Young]

I would stick with one subject Matt while you are learning and correct the bits you are not happy with, other wise you are not going to carry the learning through to the next model each time. The A-6 airframe looks good so I'd move on to working out how you are going to produce the canopy and sink the cockpit. By doing that you will learn if there is something in the way you are constructing the airframe that doesn't help with the canopy and cockpit modelling for example, rather than moving on to a new subject at this point each time.

Be sure to save a copy of the model with a different version number, eg A-6_1, A6_2, A6_3 etc before you move on to something risky like cutting out the cockpit. That way you can get back to the step before or several steps, before a disaster. It's also useful later to have simplified models that you have saved on the way to inject into less detailed LODs at the end of the modelling. I usually end up with about 30 staged models I've saved on the way.

You don't need to worry about the Tvert count at the moment. Just have a play with mapping a texture with Blender. You can't weld common vertices and reduce the count until the mapping's done.

John

[aerogator]

Hey guys, something you might want to know. I have turned my A-6 over to Mike Pearson and I know at some point he will have it done. Just some info to try to avoid unnecessary work. However, there are never too many a/c, so continue on if you want, especially if its something you enjoy!

[redtail58554]

Hey guys, something you might want to know. I have turned my A-6 over to Mike Pearson and I know at some point he will have it done. Just some info to try to avoid unnecessary work. However, there are never too many a/c, so continue on if you want, especially if its something you enjoy!

If nothing else, I can use this as my guinea pig to test animations and also to work on how to export this fs9.