This should be an interesting exercise

afecelis · Post by **afecelis** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 1:29 am

Well, it's been a long time since I posted a project here but...
For my surprise; a local (don't know if it's the proper term in English) "metal-mechanic" industry designed the new production plant of an oil company (vegetable oil-palm). The interesting part is that they wanted to walk thru it before building it (can you believe that..in Colombia?), and guess who in Bucaramanga (my city) was recommended for that? yup! me!!!

It seems like there are many ppl here for architectural modeling-rendering but no one for RT stuff!!

the interesting part was that they had it all modeled in solid edge so I had to go down to their offices w/my laptop, sit for a whole afternoon with one of the designers and try different exporting formats. The good part is that we found that 3dsmax likes STL a lot. The bad part... polycount!!!

So I had to use the imported models and re-model everything on top of them as ref. in max poly-wise. I started with a 220.000 vert count and ended up with 57.255! yup! under the 65k limit of 3ds. So now I'm ready for textures-lights-giles-my 3d and RT!!!!

ps. I had to create some interesting models (industrial type) which I'll share once the project's done!

this is what it looks like so far:
http://www.danielpatton.com/afecelis/AVM/avm00.jpg
http://www.danielpatton.com/afecelis/AVM/avm01.jpg
http://www.danielpatton.com/afecelis/AVM/avm02.jpg
http://www.danielpatton.com/afecelis/AVM/avm03.jpg
http://www.danielpatton.com/afecelis/AVM/avm04.jpg
http://www.danielpatton.com/afecelis/AVM/avm05.jpg

I'll keep you guys updated!

MikeR · Post by **MikeR** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 1:37 am

Now that's impressive.

afecelis · Post by **afecelis** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 6:57 am

the 65k limit is for triangles not for verts!!!!

this means I'm still under the knife of polycount!!! and I'm getting weird model-drawing errors.

so... back to optimizing meshes.

needforhint · Post by **needforhint** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 3:21 pm

fantastic.. could you release theese models? for use in tech demo for example

sRc · Post by **sRc** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 4:16 pm

afecelis wrote:the 65k limit is for triangles not for verts!!!!

this means I'm still under the knife of polycount!!! and I'm getting weird model-drawing errors.

so... back to optimizing meshes.

32-bit patch

Eternl Knight · Post by **Eternl Knight** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 10:50 pm

Yup, 32 bit patch and/or IrrSpintz is what you're after... I needed this for importing objects from Poser.

--EK

afecelis · Post by **afecelis** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 1:02 am

I think it's implicit in the 3ds format. Even if I open it in unwrap3d I get the 65k warning message when trying to save as 3ds.

I should check the 32 bit patch anyway.

about the models, sure, they'll be released. But I'd like to help out with some level design.

perhaps we should start a forum just for the tech demo.

vitek · Post by **vitek** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 1:45 am

The 3ds mesh loader doesn't work that well. If you haven't already done so, it may help if you make the following change to C3DSMeshFileLoader.cpp:391

Code: Select all

group.faceCount = CountIndices; // / 3;

Travis

afecelis · Post by **afecelis** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 3:15 am

Thnx Vitek, I'll give it a try. How will it help or improve loading 3ds files?

ps. Love your avatar; I had a dog like that one... brings me some nice memories!

luckymutt · Post by **luckymutt** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 4:14 am

I am *pretty sure* that 65k polys is a limit of *.3ds format, so you'll have to break it up into several meshes.
But it is looking good.
Can't wait to see more!

afecelis · Post by **afecelis** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 5:06 am

well, the good news is that I was able to optimize my geometry to a level that doesn't sacrifice the visuals much.

I was also able to perform my first lighting test with a gray material; similar to the first test renders you do in an architectural process. I must say My3d kicks butt!!!!

now it's time to texture it and show it to my clients on monday; oh yes! I also gotta add some more lights, but it took quite some time for this to render so this is ok for a test render.

vitek · Post by **vitek** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 5:27 am

How will it help or improve loading 3ds files

It fixes an issue where only part of some meshes is read back from the 3ds file. I was writing a tool to convert from the 3ds file format and wanted to use irrlicht to verify that my converter was working properly. I kept getting models with missing faces... That was the solution.

Also, luckymutt is right, the 65k limit is part of the 3ds file format. It uses 16-bit indices, so there can be no more than 65k vertexes for any single mesh. If you need more you have to break it into submeshes.

Travis

afecelis · Post by **afecelis** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 5:43 am

Hi Vitek,

I tried your patch but then all you gotta do is add 2 more slashes?
And you got 2 slashes together and 1 separated. Once i type the double one I get green text as when commenting out something. Shouldn't the 3 slashes be separated by space?

excuse my ignorance

Eternl Knight · Post by **Eternl Knight** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 6:01 am

I believe the patch is to REMOVE the "divide by three". That is, add a semi-colon directly after the "CountIndices" variable and comment out the "/ 3;" end of the line.

--EK

afecelis · Post by **afecelis** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 1:15 pm

ahhh! yes! I see it now.

Copy-paste is a wonderful thing.

So this way it will count more faces in?

compiling dll now.

Thnx EK for the explanation.

Irrlicht Engine

This should be an interesting exercise

This should be an interesting exercise

bad news

Re: bad news

Fun's about to begin!