Galactic Empire Mod stuff

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 27 Jan 2006, 17:38

Sigh... alright, let's run the figures one more time. One LAST time, because I refuse to utterly destroy your pathetic attempt at an argument again, it's just a waste of valuable time I might spend working on my mods.

With shadows off, an average computer such as my own gets a bare minimum of 150 frames a second, and as high as 300 if there's nothing at all going on and it's a simple map. All tweaks turned on, all bars full.

With shadows on, I get a framerate between 50 and 30, depending on what, if anything, I'm looking at. This is with all graphical tweaks turned on, all bars to full again.

With TWO HUNDRED of my fighters onscreen, that's 1000 triangles per fighter and 512x512 textures, I am reduced to 15-25 FPS, although generally in the higher range of that figure.

That is a total of at least 200,000 triangles in action. Now, for comic relief, check what XTA gets with 200 units onscreen. *GASP* it's the same thing! QUITE LITERALLY!

Now remember, these aren't even evolva high-detail models. These are stock XTA bulldogs which weigh in at a massive 56 polygons. I haven't modified the results in any way, in fact I puposefully put GEM at a disadvantage - XTA is rendering the same textures for every unit, GEM is rendering 4 seperate 512x512 textures for 4 different types of fighters. Oh, plus the GEM ones have things like real reflectivity.

So where's the bottleneck, my models or the engine? Put on your thinking caps here. The game performs identically with 11200 polygons worth of bulldogs onscreen as well as with 200,000+ triangles onscreen. Hmm, hmm...

As regards those pictures you posted, TRO, my goal here is authenticity to the original game, not comic-book stylized homeworld art. GEM ships are for the most part strictly industrial in design. There's nothing besides efficiency. These guys didn't gussy up the paint job with things like camoflage textures IN SPACE!

~~~

Edit: If you'd like your argument to be further crushed, read the topic I just started: http://taspring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewt ... 3457#53457

TheRegisteredOne · Post by **TheRegisteredOne** » 27 Jan 2006, 20:23

Caydr, i do not pretend to be a better modeller or a better uv mapper as you. if that is the style you like, then i say go for it. but, for my own reasons, i do not like shiney aluminum cans in space. And it is not that i think it is good to go high polied. it is that your ships, although uber high polied, lacks good design and thus looks poorer than the ships i linked to, at least in my humblest opinion.

AF · Post by AF » 27 Jan 2006, 20:58

He's right about the ship design though, those links looked much better

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 27 Jan 2006, 21:10

I have no creative control over the ship designs. I'm recreating an old game I love. This game, in my opinion, blows any game in the MoO series out of the water, except in terms of customizability. No spacefaring culture would look at two ship designs with the same armament and say, "This one is deadly, has heavy armor, is fast, and is even cheap to boot. Buuuuut... this other one has camoflage and strange, useless spokes which serve no purpose but to waste resources and manpower... On the other hand, it does look pretty damn cool. Let's go for it." I mean, maybe there's some kind of intimidation factor, but I'm not going to be frightened of an empire that's so obviously inept at starship design that they paint camoflage on all their ships and have things just for pretty.

Thanks for respecting my opinion on this. Do keep in mind though, what you see so far in my pics is most likely not what you'll get. I do intend to, once I've learned a little more, come back and make enhancements to textures and that sort of thing - assuming I DO learn anything.

I mean, seriously, my greatest achievement so far is that on the ship I just completed (one you haven't seen yet) I've added WINDOWS! Windows! And not only that, but they have a glowy effect! *gasp*

AF · Post by AF » 27 Jan 2006, 21:15

I thought the camo was meant to make the ship look good? Like the millions of litres of dull grey paint they slapped on the old fedearation ships before the miraculous idea of putting the bare aluminium on show (enterprise A).

I liked the latest one though caydr, I just prefer more HW like ships, and exotic ship designs.

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 27 Jan 2006, 22:47

in all of the sci-fi shows I watch the ships do make planetary landings... while grounded they are HUGE targets for arial units. I would prefer cammo over shiney... it looks like the bomber pilots would stop, get out their planes thank the ship designer take off and blow the shiney thing up.

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 28 Jan 2006, 16:30

Oh, right, let's paint the ship so that if there happens to be a planet that's earth-like we can land on it and *totally* confuse bomber pilots when they see this massive shadow but can only locate a big cloudy splotch with windows. If you like ships painted for style, don't say it's anything to do with realism. In WW2 you sure bet they didn't paint CAMOFLAGE on fighters or bombers. It would be a stupid waste of manpower.

Zoombie · Post by **Zoombie** » 28 Jan 2006, 18:25

And no amount of camoflauge is going to mask the heat produced from life support, fusion reactors and the people on bord! Not to mention the engins, elevators and all the other machinery!

Unless you have a Cyroarethmetic engin that sucks heat out of local space time and deposits it in a nearby quantem loophole in causeality.

Whitch is very odd, if you think about it

Whitch i just made up, if you think about it

So cammo would do nothing, cuase theres also the radar detection...and other advanced scanning device's. The best cammo would be to make the ship invisable and mask all the other byproducts of its operation.

AF · Post by AF » 28 Jan 2006, 18:35

And failing that a boy scout with a metal detector and a comic book for reference is sure to find it.

FLOZi · Post by **FLOZi** » 28 Jan 2006, 23:54

Caydr wrote:Oh, right, let's paint the ship so that if there happens to be a planet that's earth-like we can land on it and *totally* confuse bomber pilots when they see this massive shadow but can only locate a big cloudy splotch with windows. If you like ships painted for style, don't say it's anything to do with realism. In WW2 you sure bet they didn't paint CAMOFLAGE on fighters or bombers. It would be a stupid waste of manpower.

i do hope you are joking.

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 29 Jan 2006, 00:14

Zoombie wrote:And no amount of camoflauge is going to mask the heat produced from life support, fusion reactors and the people on bord! Not to mention the engins, elevators and all the other machinery!

Unless you have a Cyroarethmetic engin that sucks heat out of local space time and deposits it in a nearby quantem loophole in causeality.

Whitch is very odd, if you think about it

Whitch i just made up, if you think about it

So cammo would do nothing, cuase theres also the radar detection...and other advanced scanning device's. The best cammo would be to make the ship invisable and mask all the other byproducts of its operation.

Radar jamming is possible.. but as far as picking up a heat signature you are correct. However, Not all aircraft will have it. Sometimes people just look with their eyes.. i.e. forward scouts. It would help yes.

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 29 Jan 2006, 05:34

Well I'm not a WW2 buff like you are. If people actually did paint camo on their aicraft, well, they deserved to lose...

Zoombie · Post by **Zoombie** » 29 Jan 2006, 06:36

Oh wait...now that i think about it, when your space heat detection is very important.

ITs just cause, when you think of it, space is roughtly 1 to 0, in the heat rating (100 being earth norm, 10000000000 being surface of the sun norm in my crazy mixed up system of mesurment), a spaceships only needs to be a few degree's warmer to be detected by millitary grade sensors.

TheRegisteredOne · Post by **TheRegisteredOne** » 29 Jan 2006, 15:33

but since space, being the near vacuun that is it, doesn't conduct heat, all the ship designers have to do is surround the engines with a material that absorbs electomagnetic radiation.

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 29 Jan 2006, 15:41

TheRegisteredOne wrote:but since space, being the near vacuun that is it, doesn't conduct heat, all the ship designers have to do is surround the engines with a material that absorbs electomagnetic radiation.

Really... I could have sworn earth is running off a heat source that's has a little bit of space between it and us

IMSabbel · Post by **IMSabbel** » 29 Jan 2006, 16:56

TheRegisteredOne wrote:but since space, being the near vacuun that is it, doesn't conduct heat, all the ship designers have to do is surround the engines with a material that absorbs electomagnetic radiation.

Well, obviously the laws of thermodynamics dont agree.
Hint: the energy goes somewhere. You cannot insulate better than a vacuum layer with mirrored surfaces, and no mirror surface can completely nullify blackbody radiation....

But thats pointless, isnt it? A spaceship thats more than a sitting duck will need to use such large energies when operating that the heat signiture wont matter.

You might simply want to detect the gravitiy waves :)

AF · Post by AF » 29 Jan 2006, 17:32

but since space, being the near vacuun that is it, doesn't conduct heat,

Someone hasnt heard of EM radiation causing heat, such as passing your hand infront of an infrared heater? Or putting food in a microwave? Or feeling the sun on the back of your neck on a warm day?

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 29 Jan 2006, 18:57

I suck

Post by **jcnossen** » 29 Jan 2006, 19:12

but since space, being the near vacuun that is it, doesn't conduct heat.
Someone hasnt heard of EM radiation causing heat, such as passing your hand infront of an infrared heater? Or putting food in a microwave? Or feeling the sun on the back of your neck on a warm day?

That's not called conduction, that's called radiation. Those are two different things.
Heat conduction requires actual matter as a medium.

caydr: "microwaves" is just a subset of elektro magnetic radiation.

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 29 Jan 2006, 21:08

Yeah, well... you suck.

Spring RTS Engine

Galactic Empire Mod stuff