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FSXA Gmax Part Summary

R

Ragtopjohnny

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202
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unitedstates
Hey all --

Just a quick question on the part summary thing --

Is it the Vertices that you see in the part summary that make up the polygons or is it the faces thing that make up the polygons?

Just wondering if there's a way in Gmax to get an actual Polygon count so you can see where you're at and not be so confused.

I know Aerosoft's F-16 said they had close to 500,000 vertices, so I'm FAR from that in that aspect, about 80,000.

Just wondering what's what, so I don't go ewwwwww over my poly count.

Also, I know developing for FSX is different than for media. I know media can handle more, etc, so are two versions best, one for media and one for FSX?
 
Xpand

Xpand

Messages
549
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nicaragua
The polygons are made from 3 or more vertices.
You can make airplanes for fsx that look good for media. There are a few tricks, like using the normal map or the texture for small or unnoticeable details intead of modeling them.
 
N2056

N2056

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683
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us-california
Here's how to check...

Image1.jpg
 
lionheart

lionheart

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10,088
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us-arizona
The game also goes by pure triangles. I 'think' the Polygon counter does triangles, but I dont know this for sure.

Polygons in Gmax are Polys that could have 100 Vertices, but a gaming Poly is 3 sided, only 3 Vertices, which the Compiler will convert the model to, but adds smoothing groups as well to keep the Polys smooth looking in-game.
 
hairyspin

hairyspin

Resource contributor
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3,253
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unitedkingdom
lionheart said:
The game also goes by pure triangles. I 'think' the Polygon counter does triangles, but I dont know this for sure.
Click to expand...

If your mesh is Editable Poly you'll get one result from the polygon counter tool, if it's Editable Mesh you'll get another and bigger result; equal to the triangle count in E. Mesh afaik. The important thing is not to exceed 64K vertices per texture (iirc) for FSX.
 
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n4gix

n4gix

Resource contributor
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11,674
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unitedstates
Since I mostly work in E-Poly mode, I take the report from the Polygon Counter, and multiply by 1.5 for a "ball park estimate."

In GMax's Polygon Counter, what is reported for an E-Poly part is the total number of rectangle polys consisting of the two triangles. A rectangle has four vertices, two triangles have six vertices, which is a 1.5:1 ratio!
 
R

Ragtopjohnny

Messages
202
Country
unitedstates
Thanks everyone for the answers. N2056, I thought that was it when I stumbled on it before, but just seemed, "too easy?" for some reason? LOL.

How did Aerosoft get away with close to 500,000 then for their F-16 in FSX? I'm confused on that one....:confused:

I have to start trusting my instincts it looks like....:)
 
lionheart

lionheart

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10,088
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us-arizona
Two of us have now found 'limits' to the FSX compiler.

As it seems, the first known limit was 65,000 Polygons per material. But then we found a new limit that triggers a Max Memory crash on the compiler for FSX. My model had a Poly count of 413,000. Thats not Vertices but Polys via the Polygon counter, and half are Mesh objects, half Poly objects.

We also found a realization that perhaps 'layers' in a FSX material might also effect the memory, as like the Vertice count limits.

Also, something Phil, formerly with Aces, noted that smoothing groups effect Vertice counts. For instance, if a square box is smoothed, it has 8 Vertices. But if you unsmooth it, having 6 sides (12 faces or pure triangles), then you have 24 Vertices, 4 vertices per side or Poly. This means that the computer has to detach 'faces' in smoothing groups for their own unique shading groups.

It kinda gets crazy.....

You almost have to just go for it, and hope you dont hit the limit like we did. So many things to count, but what really is the limit(s)?


Bill
 
hcornea

hcornea

Resource contributor
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2,388
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australia
lionheart said:
......

We also found a realization that perhaps 'layers' in a FSX material might also affect the memory, as like the Vertice count limits.
Click to expand...

Bill .. can you explain what you mean by "layers" in FSX materials. Are you referring to the number of maps associated with a material or something different?

Another tip:

Download the latest development release of Arno's modelconverterX ... run your compiled mdl through it and look at the object properties dialog (triangle and tvert count per material). Then you will grasp what X2Mdl has done to your geometry. It also gives you an idea of a) how efficiently you've used your materials and b) how much headroom you have.

For a scenery point of view, i use the max tvert / material count to work out how many placements of the object will saturate a drawcall buffer. This isn;t a practical issue for aircraft .. becasue you can only compile 65535 tverts for any given material.
 
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