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Re: Impressions on RB3D Utility a2

To: REALbasic Games <realbasic-games at lists dot realsoftware dot com>
Subject: Re: Impressions on RB3D Utility a2
From: Lo Saeteurn <realbasic at miensoftware dot com>
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2005 23:30:53 -0700
Delivered-to: realbasic-games at lists dot realsoftware dot com
References: <43531B1A dot 2010400 at optonline dot net> <1A6E1032-4451-4FC2-8EF9-FCDE42B88D3C at miensoftware dot com> <43532394 dot 1010704 at optonline dot net> <719F4A6B-9B9D-4216-8974-701ECB2AED51 at miensoftware dot com> <435340F6 dot 1070305 at optonline dot net>
All you need to do is have one model (for each LOD), the "base model", with the texture. For the frames, all it needs are the vertex positions. That's basically what's stored in the animation file (plus the base models). I haven't released the version that tweens the normals. The current version only tweens the vertices, but normals would need to be tweened as well for the lighting to be correct. I'll try to get a stable release soon.

You would apply the texture to just one model (for the base model), then, you would batch convert all the other frames without the textures. Set the base model to the textured model, and add the frames (the models without the texture).

I see. Cool.

Perhaps you might consider having the tool handle skeletal animation as well. I imagine it would save loads of memory.

That's much more difficult to do, plus it would need to support the loading of skeletal data. With tweening animation, each frame uses anywhere from 10-20k of extra memory. Usually you'll only need about 5-10 FPS for an animation to look like the original.

So really you'll only save about 20k for each frame of animation (assuming 2500 vertices in the model). For a walk animation, you'd likely need about 5-10 frames. That's basically about 100-200k of memory. In total (assuming 10 animations), you're probably saving at most a few megabytes per model which is not very significant. If you copy the animation model by code within RB, it will not take up extra space (except 1 separate vertex data to keep the copy separate from the original).

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