Animated models and slowdowns

Amt0571 · Post by **Amt0571** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:59 am

Hello,

I've finally managed to solve some performance problems I had in the past with irrlicht (I was not loading a mesh correctly), and nearly doubled the fps.

However I've added some low poly animated models to the scene (22 models, to be exact). All models are made with 3D Studio Max 6, use bones for animations, and are exported using the b3d exporter, placed on the scene using IrrEdit, and finally loaded by reading the xml file.

The problem is that after adding all these models, whenever a few of them come into view (3 or 4 models are enough) the frame rate cuts almost in half...

Most of the models have very simple animations looping all time, and all of them have around 20 frames of animation.

Is normal this performance impact or it's possible that I've done something wrong?

Thanks!

a_haouchar · Post by **a_haouchar** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 3:25 am

are you using irrlicht 1.1 or 1.2?

esaptonor · Post by **esaptonor** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 3:33 am

what was the FPS to start with? because a drop from 2000-1000 is not the same as a drop from 10 to 5.

Luke · Post by **Luke** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 3:38 am

Well the speed you get will be heavily based on you cpu speed, as Irrlicht doesn’t have hardware skinning (yet

)

The b3d animator in the SVN is a fair bit faster then 1.2 now, so that may help.

you to tell us your pc stats, and the ploys in the mesh,

I don’t really get that much of a performance impact from animated meshes.

Amt0571 · Post by **Amt0571** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 12:52 pm

I'm using Irrlicht 1.1 (I have been upgrading without problems since 0.14). I'm not using 1.2 because when I tried it, some my3d models I have which use alpha channel were drawn as if they were solid.

Since my project is nearly complete now, I decided just to stick with 1.1.

The fps drop is from 55fps to just 19fps in the worst case, which is quite significant.

About the polys... in my project I have the following meshes:

- Static my3d mesh with 40.000 polys
- Static my3d mesh with 8.000 polys (I have this separated from the above since this one does not need collision detection)
- A water surface in .x with 200 polys
- 22 b3d models that vary between 200 and 500 polys (and are for sure what causes the slowdown)

The PC specs are:

Core 2 Duo E6300 (1,83ghz dual core)
ASUS Geforce 7900GS 256mb
2gb ram 667DDR from Kingston
ASUS P5B Motherboard

I have also been revising those models and found that 2 of them don't have 20 frames as I said. There are 2 models which have 200 frames each, and they are causing the biggest hit. I suppose don't know if it's normal that such a long animation causes this slowdown, but I can't think of another way to make this animation...

Thanks for your help

Luke · Post by **Luke** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 1:27 pm

Well I’ve worked hard on the b3d animator today.

I boasted the speed of the b3d animator in tests from 100fps to 512fps

It was already faster then x, in that test

It’s faster then ms3d now too, in a test 190fps (ms3d), 300fps(b3d)

This test was with 10 of psionic’s dwarf meshes, with the animation not caching.

It can now handle large numbers of keyframes with less slow down too.

Can you tell I’m happy

I'm not to sure how well it will work with Irrlicht 1.1

Amt0571 · Post by **Amt0571** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 3:24 pm

And what do I have to do to boast the speed like you? I mean... can you explain what have you done?

Thanks

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 3:34 pm

I guess Luke will provide a patch to add these features to Irrlicht soon. But could you please give us some sample ms3d mesh which shows problems?

Amt0571 · Post by **Amt0571** » Sun Jan 21, 2007 4:44 pm

Thanks then, I'll wait for the patch... for now I've just shortened the length of the 2 animations.

Luke · Post by **Luke** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 3:31 am

Yeah, I'll release a patch soon, I just do some testing,

Amt0571, don't worry too much about shorting the length of the animations, it shouldn't cause a performance hit any more.

Amt0571 · Post by **Amt0571** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 5:52 pm

Well, I have to deliver my project the 16th of february... so in case the patch is not ready then, I shortened the animations.

Thanks a lot for your help