Spring RTS Engine

This is my first attempt at modelling here. I've gotten about 16 hours worth of 3DS Max training since the start of the month and I finally felt confident enough to get started on modeling for an upcoming mod idea. This is the rough draft of one of 4 tanks for the human side of my mod, the most powerful, the Myrmidon MKII.



So far all i've learned is the basic modeling. We haven't gone over basic optimization yet, so i did my best to keep the face count as low as possible while using what I've learned so far.

How is it? :X

Superior to most fifth efforts. Sort of high in poly-count, however. Round objects only need six sides or so. You can do a lot of the details with texture.

Keep it up, lad!

I may focus on reducing the poly count for the weapons. The two cannons nearly doubled my poly count. I don't think 888 faces is too bad for a unit that won't be built too often, but 1500+ is way too high.

The flat sides of the threads have way too many polies in them.

KDR_11k wrote:The flat sides of the threads have way too many polies in them.

Yeah, how do i remove those without having empty space?

It looks like you could merge it into three faces, but I'm not sure...

That looks realy good. keep it up .

BBOOOOOO!!!!


^_^ Now that you're not NR, can't ban me biatch!

Not quite the first model i've done, but the first I've done using wings
http://img231.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mech2di0.jpg

So is anyone willing to offer tips/instructions on how to remove unused/unneeded polies? >_>

press 'e' select the edges and delete them

press v

if you are left with floating vertices as in the little black squares that are not connected to anything else... press e and delete them as well.

staaarrr seeiiiggggeee

smoth wrote:press 'e' select the edges and delete them

press v

if you are left with floating vertices as in the little black squares that are not connected to anything else... press e and delete them as well.

hmmmm, just tried it... selecting edges and simply deleting them leaves big empty spaces :X
I don't want to do that, i just want to turn my large flat surface into a single poly rather than 20 or so little ones.

Is there a way to close this big gaping hole? >_>

Sry for the double post but i believe it is relevant.

I figured out how to optimize and remove unwanted polys and cap them where open spaces were left.
BUT, with all of those useless polys removed, i was still only able to reduce the model's facecount down to 832 instead of 888.

So meh.

Honestly, given the overhead from the engine itself, 500 polies is probably the minimum you should be putting into a unit, so 800 is fine.

It's not the polycount per se, Mr. Frumious. It's the obvious wastage. I should show off my poor Bomber's wires at some point, as a, "don't do this" sort've thing- it's rather embarrassing tho, I'll wait until I have built a more optimized model first

Uh, There seems to be many flat planes with multiple triangles or quads, which is stupid way, because you could replace those flat planes with just one triangle or quad.
Also remove every small polygons, because you can make them with just graphics, and we cant really see those small details in game... so its waste of resources....

Looks good anyways

I would reduce the cannons to hexagonal prisms.

Remember that you'll probably need to tri your model before its finished, and so any polygons with more than 3 points will need to be split up. That large, flat polygon on the side is still going to need to be half a dozen smaller ones. Think about minimizing the number of points at the edges of this large polygon- perhaps by connecting the points diagonally rather than each connecting having its own point. When minmizing polygons its very important to think about reducing the number of points, not the number of connections (In fact, ill almost always delete points, not connections).

Failing that you could just take the old model and flare that piece outwards- in which case its not wasted polygons.

You can afford to lose some of those points down the middle of the front (Esp the line that divides your tank in half), as well as the line across the top (running left-right) of your turret, and the slope just behind that could probably afford to be 1 polygon too. As Neddie says, you dont need that many sides to make something look cylindrical. You used 12, yes? An alright number but 8-6 would probably be fine.

The design itself is excellent. Thats the most important bit- the rest is just technicalities.

neddiedrow wrote:I would reduce the cannons to hexagonal prisms.

Well, the thing about the cannons is definately a priority. I will most seriously reduce the count in the cannons.

Without revealing too much about my mod. What I plan for the most part is that each vehicle will have different variants equipped with different weapons/abilities. So in the factory build menu for example, you may see this tank 2-3 times, each version having a tiny icon in the lower right of the build image showing what type of loadout it would have. The one displayed above has only two hardpoints and may only have 2 variants. One with Plasma cannons (EarthSiege/StarSiege type, not the kind of plasma cannon that you find in TA) and another with ballistic cannons.

So I agree with lowering the poly count for the weapons. They were simply placeholders to give ppl and idea of what it would look like finished. I have no idea how to script animations, so while i may have the model finished, i still need to UV map it and animate it.