animation question

Ok i know this has been covered a bit before.

but has anyone used alot say 50 md2 animation meshes in one scene?

this is for my syndicate game again. my main charcters are b3d format because i need to them change weopens etc and i understand that you cant have a gun model pivoted off of a md2 models hand. but for my models of the general pubic in the game i was thinking md2 because ive heard (but never tested) that lots of .b3d models animating is a bit intensive on older systems.

My question is has anyone tested how much difference this makes?

My target system in a mid range graphics card and a single 2 ghz cpu. mainly because thats what my lower spec system is.

maybe i will download a md2 model from quake and try and setup a test.

ok answered my own question, but is there any tips anyone can give me to speed up performance?

on a athlon 64 3200+ with 9800pro.
At the moment i get a solid 76 fps with 50 animated md2 models, it goes down to 62 with 100. thats not bad, but my demo was just a basic lightmapped mesh of a road with a few houses. no ai , pathfinding or sound. so im going to have to do something.

Pete,

B3d speed excels at calculation stuff, it is surfaces it seems to have problems with.

Is there anyway you can reduce the md2 polys in the far bgd to very low polygon? I guess Im suggesting a sort of LOD on the md2s. I wouldn't have thought a nicely ligthmapped low poly level would give you too much headache unles you have lots and lots of surfaces - then it would.

In my latest project I have had 40+ boned, animated b3d models running around with lots of polys, lots of textures and particle - ok it was on a high end duo core, but B3d can achieve it. I believe md2's are more efficient in fps terms than b3d.

IPete2.


IPete2.

IPete2: Ok i can convert my models to both formats and try them both, i guess i could even have a low detail and a high detail option at the start of the game, the low detail loading low poly md2 and the high detail loading better .b3d meshes. i was hoping to have this run on a middle of the road system but i dont think so now.



the trouble with that is i was hoping for like in the original syndicate, when you "persuade" lots of the public they follow you around, sometimes in very big groups. so they never get far enough away to not notice any change in detail.

Hi Pete - you might want to work out a 'budget' for your ai/pathfinding/sound eg game logic stuff in terms of milliseconds per frame you are willing to spend/use. On a system like your target system - which is what my laptop pretty much is - I've found that in all my games (which you've played and tested a few) those components of the game usually take no more than 1-6 milliseconds (at worst) in total per frame. It is almost always the graphics rendering which is the bottleneck in b3d (I'm sure you are aware of this too) - but if you put together some test scenes - even if they are just junk polygons - with the expected scene polycounts/surface counts and account for at least 6ms taken each frame (worst case scenario) in game logic (or similar amount if you know for a fact what the game logic will cost) then you should be able to determine how many and how complex your md2/b3d character models can be.

On another note:
It is kind of possible to have md2s with swappable weapons. Look at the way quake 2 models were designed - the weapons were a separate md2 model which was animated to be in the appropriate spot on the character model for each frame of the character's animation. Fairly easy to do - simply animate the model with its weapon in your 3d package and then export the model and the weapon as separate md2s.

I never played the original syndicate other than a small demo which was available many years ago (and my friend's original disks had become corrupted so unable to play at all now..) but what I did play was great fun - the persuadertron was great, as was loading the cars full of civilians then blowing it up...truly nasty game..brings out the worst in people...but great fun nonetheless.

I think your game could possibly run fine on a middle of the road system.

Matty: ive been using your model you gave me to do the tests (the little dude with the flag on his back) im still using your RTS frame work you sent me for reference i like the way you use txt files, keeps the code nice and clean.

I havent even added the GUI stuff like power bars etc which can slow some cards down, particles could be slow down issue too.

Id love to get this to work over LAN but thats something ive no idea how to do.

thanks for the advice.