Can i use .dts for my level or must i use dif ?

#1 DTS uses a lot more polygons and therefore will render slower. Do you mean you want to do a movie of trolls being shot in a cave?

#2 Hi FruitBatInShades,

no i do not make a movie, i will make a short coffeebraktimegame, a little shoter in wich you are driving in a lore and only can turn around in the lore and drice on the trail/rail way trough the caves and there you see some trolls and can shoot them.

So in this game i only need colusion to control if the bullet hit the trolls.

I understand that the .dst objects can have more polys if i modeled them so and that the render performance will slow down wich much polys.

What i not understand is what will the bsp tree do if i use .dst's?

I think of using Lightwave to model the caves like in the other treads.
http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=23247
http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=23246

I can then save them as .map file and load them in quark if that helps to build a better bsp tree.
But i do not know if i lost the advantages if i save as .map files in Lightwave or better save them as .dts files. I mean if i save them as .map files perhaps i must model them blockwise like in quark or can i build my models like i will and later switch out off the colusion control in quark or just use .dst files.
Maybe i must try it but i have not a slow computer si i can not realy see if it runs smoothly on a slow computer.

Also i want to render them quickly in computers that does not have the up to date hardware.

Mathias

#3 @FruitInBatShades

No this is not correct. The actual performance hit that you get from using DTS shapes in your scene has more to do with the collision shapes and collision detection. The larger (ie physical size) and more complex (ie polygons) the DTS collision shape is the more power the engine has to put towards detections.

As such it is actually not a terribly bad idea to use DTS shapes for certain objects that the player interacts with.

@Mathius

As a general rule of thumb anything large that a player can go inside or on top of (ie. a building, cave, etc.) that does not need to move or animate should be a DIF. You cannot use a BSP with a DTS.

#4 @L Foster

So if i will have bsp i must use dif but then when i will make a nice cave with many polys, the collusion hit the performance, right ?

Can i switch of the collusion for the cave dif and use a simple quader for the only needed colusion in my game ?

Thank you.
Mathias

#5 @Mathias: There are some tutorials for building nice caves using quark (I think), or other map creations applications, so you can go that route and still use bsp (since your cave is a .dif).

On switching collision mechanisms, if you have the SDK (and you do) and you have the skills, you can do anything you like--you have the source code!

#6 Yes, you can make a cave witha CSG editor (like QUARK).

A cave that looks like it was cut with a laser beam, that is, since getting UVs to align properly on CSG on uneven surfaces is impossible most of the time, not to mention the flat shading.

Another alternative is creating a .DIF interior for collision only (and somehow make it not render - might need to do some code changes), and model yourself a nice cave, with nice texture UV and normals that fits around it. You may aso need to work out ways to prevent the cave model from disappearing, and that will probably involve code changes (maybe you can get away by slicing the cave into small pieces). Either add a flag to keep it aways visible or something.

#7 Medion:

Quote:
Another alternative is creating a .DIF interior for collision only (and somehow make it not render - might need to do some code changes)

Nah, it's in stock Torque. Assign the DIF shape as a collision entity and you're set. It won't render, but will compute collision. Iv'e hard it also works if you NULL out the textures, but I haven't seen that yet.

#8 You don't need to worry about BSP much - Torque only uses that for collision, and it sounds like you are handling that yourself anyway.

It sounds like you're doing a rail shooter - something like House of the Dead, right?

If so, you won't need any collision with the walls so using DTS should not be a problem.

If you have rendering performance problems, you might think about splitting your DTS level into sections set inside boxy DIF 'rooms' - that should make it easier to divide your levels with portals and help performance.

#9 That sounds verry interesting,

can i delte dif ord dts objects when the player have passed them in the game ?

And the other way, can i load dif or dts objects at the game time just before i need them.

I am arfraid that my games has to manny textures and objects. It should only have one level but this should be 2 - 4 minutes without to stop.

Till now i have found a way to model my dif objects in Lightwave and can make them really fast and nice, but i have a texture problem so i must texture them in quark.

Load and delete textures and objects during playtime would be fine !
But i am not a programmer till now :)

Well i do my verry best to be a good beginner and read and try and make a liitle game for the first time.

Mathias