[Isugamedev-midworld] midworld model crisis

[Josh B. <br...@vr...>]

Hey Andres and midworld team,

I haven't had a chance to talk to you in a while.  I'm sure you're at
least as busy as I am.  (that's why I'm finally getting around to emailing
you at 4:30 in the morning)

I don't know if anyone has talked to you lately about midworld but it is
really progressing.  We are to the point where we really need some more
art.  In order to have a finished game these are the 4 things that we 
NEED (at least in my opinion) and we pretty much need them in the next 
week:

we NEED a player asap (more specifically) we need a player that is broken
down into seperate model files for: head, torso, hands, forearms,
upperarms, upper legs, lowwer legs, and feet. So that we can do simple key
framing animation.

we NEED a guns (more specifically) we need a pistol, shotgun, spreadgun, 
assult rifle.

we NEED a big bullet (more specifically) we need something that is more 
like a rocket that is launched from the turret or missle launcher.

we NEED a new ammo crate, barrel, tent (more specifically) we need fewer
polygons drawn to the screen.  Basically what we have is the situation
that on windows, OpenSG isn't very optimized and on top of that we aren't
that great of game coders (yet) so we don't know how to optimize alot of
stuff.  Therefore, we are dealing with the situation that we can only
display about 8000 polygons for the whole scene and still get all our
calculations done in time so that we still run at (just barely) a
reasonable frame rate (like 28 fps, which is a reasonable guess right now,
but the guys that are developing on windows right, chad and levi, can
probably give you a better estimate).  So the goal is to draw 8000 polys
(at the most) at a time.

The way I see it, in the worst case, we would want to draw to the screen 
(after revising the ammo crate, tent and barrel models to be optimized we 
are left with the following worst case):

Player (the most important)  	1580 polys 	1580 
the Gun 			 100 polys 	 100 
bullets with casings (90) 	  12 polys 	1080 
walls (15)  			  25 polys 	 375 
buildings or large debris (3)	  64 polys 	 192 
debris (8)  			  38 polys   	 304
tent (4)			  38 polys	 152 
Turrets (3)  			 450 polys 	1350 
droids (3)  			1000 polys 	3000 
ammo crates (2)  		  12 polys 	  24 
particle engine effects (2)  	 100 polys 	 200 
--------------- 		---------- 	---- 
TOTAL 						8357

So basically in a worst case where we actually draw all of this then we
still can't make our 8000 poly budget even with the slimmed back models I
have above.  But this is the worst case and we can pretty much avoid it by
locating stuff so that we don't get all of this all at once.  At any rate,
you'll notice that the droid and turret are represented the way they are
currently modeled so they do not need to be changed.  also notice that I
budgeted you alot of polys to do the player and the guns.  I also didn't
just arbirtrarly pick random poly ammounts I thought about how I could
draw each item's exterior frame and gave it that many polys.


At any rate this message is intended as a discussion message that everyone 
is welcome to comment on.  and in the mean time Andres, if you have a 
little free time and get a chance we could really use the player.  So 
first and foremost see if you can get us a broken up player so that we can 
start experimenting with it - that would be sooooooooo awesome.  

And since I haven't said it to you in a while you're still the most 
talented modeler on the planet.

Cheers and let's get some discussion going so that andres has some target
polygon levels on all remaining models. (and hopefully he will have time
to get at least some of it to us before the 5th so we can test)

cheers
Josh