Spring RTS Engine

Tobi: http://wormhole.tauniverse.com/images/s ... at_new.jpg
The slits in the doors of that use the existing s3o transparency (in other words it works fine on units). Of course, Mr. D's previous models serve just as well, but the LAAT is a nice, easy to spot example, since the door would just be solid if it didn't work.

/me wants real RGBA textures without Lua

rattle wrote:/me wants real RGBA textures without Lua

This would be unwise, see Tobis post.

All I need it for with these units is an on/off Transparency.

Translucent or semi-transparent stuff is nice for specific aplication, such as cockpit areas or for special effects like cloaking or chameleon appearing units, or glass objects, but without being able to distinguish from one or the other I can see where it would start eating GPU.

Zpock wrote:

rattle wrote:/me wants real RGBA textures without Lua

This would be unwise, see Tobis post.

Perhaps. However it would not depend on unit reflections nor require shaders.

I use transparencies on units also, I have the shoulders of the rx78 rather then cuting the hole I use transparencies and a few solid faces to fake the geometry. I did the same on the Morty and I do it in other places as well..








So... mr. d.. any updates?

On polycount, CA's flea is this horrendously ineffecient 1000+ polygon monster. There was a point a while ago where fleas were op due to them being all terrain. On maps with cliffs, you could slip in any angle with massive, non-stop hordes of fleas. And i mean hordes and hordes, swarming zerg-like seas of fleas. You get the same on speedmetal, several facs with nanos spamming fleas non-stop, clogging up the ramp in the middle.

Ive never noticed any lag from it at all, even with a speedmetal economy dedicated to fleaspam.

The CA flea also uses Alpha transparency though right?
On its back, those fins on that shield on his back are vented by Alpha and not just modeled?

Modeled iirc.

They are modeled, hence 1k tris. Also the eyes are very polygon heavy.

IIRC, I killed some of the polies when I made the ribs thin..

Saktoth wrote:On polycount, CA's flea is this horrendously ineffecient 1000+ polygon monster. There was a point a while ago where fleas were op due to them being all terrain. On maps with cliffs, you could slip in any angle with massive, non-stop hordes of fleas. And i mean hordes and hordes, swarming zerg-like seas of fleas. You get the same on speedmetal, several facs with nanos spamming fleas non-stop, clogging up the ramp in the middle.

Ive never noticed any lag from it at all, even with a speedmetal economy dedicated to fleaspam.

657 Triangles supposedly, not 1000+

yeah I was about to say, just by looking at the model there is no way its 1000 or higher.

Unless it hadn't been optimized, or there were alot of unnecessary backfaces or bevels or something, which is not something Smoth allows to happen to his models.

At 600 tri, that matches the current BA/CA Krogoth model.

My Core Commander model that XTA and CA use is around 1600-2000 IRC (I forget).. it doesn't use any Transparent Alpha and it doesn't destroy FPS, of course there is typically only 1 per player though.

So what is the good "solid" answer for using alpha then?

Better to use higher tri counts and exclude the use of any transparency?

or?

Better to use as low triangles as possible, and use Alpha transparency sparingly?

wasn't my model, I just texed it. That was one of my first s3os.. was playing around when I did it. I probably should have done a better job. The eyes were cool though.

Flea is 685 tris btw. not the most efficient considering the size. The ribs are modeled and 12 tris each. The eyes are 48 tris each. the first verion didn't had them but imo the result is worth the expence.

If a higher poly count is killing your spring, stop running it on a Pentium 3 600mhz with a Gforce 4 Ti

ok, well its all unwrapped and I have it in .s3o format now.

Gotta wait on starting the textures though, I had to rush another model for my HalfLife-2 mod team Firearms-2, and I gotta get it optimised and uvw_mapped by the weekend.

2980 triangles

MR.D wrote:So what is the good "solid" answer for using alpha then?

Better to use higher tri counts and exclude the use of any transparency?

or?

Better to use as low triangles as possible, and use Alpha transparency sparingly?

In my opinion, use alpha when it doesn't screw up the model too much if it's disabled. For example, little holes that add detail but are not essential like on those Smoth models, with a backup texture in place (no white or bright pink).

Not on things like wheel caps that will look really bad without the alpha obviously.

Yeah, for those of you who saw it, I textured the morty without transparencies first then I added the transparency, so that people without the settings can see the model lookiing good still.

just a question here, not a criticism.

Wouldn't using half an octotoad on the eyes, stretching one side and uniform scaling on the stretched side be a better way to go? Cause as fay as I can tell, spring would render it as being smooth anyway.

Does it really matter?