3 matters...

posted on October 14th, 2012, 9:51 am

As you can probably see from the title I have 3 matters to discuss...

(1) Is there a limitation to the model polygon complexity that the Fleetops modified armada II engine can take? Presuming you have a high-end computer, can the engine itself manage to have HD textures and high polygon models?

(2) Is there a way to zoom out further than I already can? I already have the resolution at 1920x1080, but somehow everything still seems... big... too up close... the old armada II had a great zoom level that really gave me an overview over a lot of objects!

(3) What does hardware vertex processing do in fleetops? I turned it off and I don't see a difference except that that it has alleviated my Borg texture loading problem (its still there but not nearly as problematic).

posted on October 15th, 2012, 8:06 pm

I'm completely shooting in the dark here so I may be entirely wrong; devs feel free to correct me.

1) My guess is that the engine was originally coded well enough that there aren't any hard caps, but not so well that there aren't practical caps. It may also be limited by the fact that the engine is still using DX8. My guess is also that any individual model may be capped to a few thousand polys. Similarly with textures. The fact is that as an RTS, the engine doesn't need to handle huge models or textures. You could easily test texture limits by replacing an existing texture with a 2k or even 4k texture and see what happens.

2) Don't know, but I don't believe so; you might look in RTS_CFG.h.

3) My guess is that it moves bump mapping, lighting, etc. to the GPU rather than CPU. On most modern rigs this probably doesn't make any difference as the models and textures are so small it's irrelevant.

posted on October 16th, 2012, 2:37 am

1) In Fleet Operations there's no given limit per se, but I wouldn't recommend going much above 50,000 polies, and certainly on very few units. The limit is mostly defined by your computer. For limited units, 20k is reasonable, unless you don't care about online play. Textures easily get much more intensive very quickly, for little gain. 512 or 1024 work just fine for most purposes at the highest magnification - the old render makes going much above this difficult without experiencing performance issues. That will be resolved in time however.

2) You can increase the max height to zoom out by modifying the OVERVIEW_MAX_HEIGHT parameter in your rts_cfg.h. This will break compatibility with other 326 games however. We prefer the current zoom height, due to the balance between performance and fleet control - FO isn't a game like Supreme Commander where you can zoom out hugely, or one like Starcraft where you start zoomed in even further.

3) Can't help you there

posted on October 16th, 2012, 3:35 pm

Aye, I wasn't expecting to zoom out to the entire map, only a little more than what it is should be perfect, but why should that ruin 326 compatibility?

As for the vertex processing, I don't know what the issue is with that (maybe windows 7), whatever the case may be, I have a high end system and can run the game normally on 1920x1080, 2x AA, with it being on off not making a difference except for borg texture loading, but that is on any resolution.

posted on October 16th, 2012, 4:00 pm

Sorry, I meant to say that it will break compatibility with 326 online .

posted on October 17th, 2012, 1:18 am

Regarding texture limits and the Storm3d engine, I've found the following: Any larger than about 2048 and the Storm3d viewer acts strangely when that model is loaded. The textures look sort of jpg compressed. I dare say due to the way the viewer works. They work fine in game however.

From a model making PoV, there is a limit to the number of individual texture files/groups that a model can have before it fails to export properly. It's a fairly common problem when converting models originally made for SFC, as it seems makers of models for that game like to be very inefficient with their UVmapping and such and just have a hundred or so separate texture files. Not good.

Poly counts, I really wouldn't go as high as 20 or 50k as people have said on this thread. Above 7 or 8k and you can barely tell the difference any way. It's all a matter of properly optimising your models.

posted on October 17th, 2012, 2:07 am

Yeah, given that the models are tiny, it makes very little difference after a certain point.

The problems with Storm3D are probably due to internal assumptions. When it was originally written, they probably never imagined it would be used with textures larger than 512.

posted on October 17th, 2012, 2:13 am

Generally, FO can handle very High poly models, but the more mesh groups on screen, the more tearing and lagg you will experance. The higher res the textures you use are, the more lag you will get when moving from one spot to another.

Best thing to do is to go no higher than 1024 on resolution, but high on poly. no more than 1 mesh group on models and put at least 3 LOD's on. I have had 40k polygon models onscreen with no lag because they have very low res textures.

posted on October 17th, 2012, 4:33 am

I can run a billion ships all on screen at once and the game runs fine but if I cloak even a few of them all of a sudden my game gets choppy. Is this issue something that is just going to be there forever or did they figure out how to fix that yet. My favorite faction are the Klingons so I tend to use cloaking alot.

posted on October 17th, 2012, 4:06 pm

It does seem a little pointless to have a 40k Polygon model with hugely low res textures though. It's better to be balanced about it; a model with half the polys but twice the resolution on textures will run pretty much the same, but look a lot better. Still, depends on what you term "low res" For a whole ship ( i.e 1 texture file per ship) I don't think anything above 2048 is needed, and even 512 is reasonable for a small one.

For model makers, as I said, balance. You can't put all your detail into the mesh or all of it into the texture. Optimise

As for your cloaking woes Nathan, that is due to the additive blending used for the effect. I doubt there is much that can be done about it sadly.

posted on October 17th, 2012, 4:55 pm

I'm pretty sure the cloaking issue is either an inefficient algorithm in the rendering code or an ineficient algorithm in the old DX 8 libraries (pertaining to the alpha blending); and that can't really be fixed until the devs replace the renderer.

posted on October 17th, 2012, 9:30 pm

Ah yes... the cloak... Obviously this problem is quite nasty. Probably an alternative will need to be found, altering the transparency of the ships seems choppy. Its strange however since the old Armada II didn't have such problems.

I'd assume the cloaking effect is directly connected to the amount of poly's a model uses?

What if it were made that instead of transparency you would have the texture being altered to a solid black texture with a wireframe with red or green wires (corresponding to the race's colour of course)?

If nothing else it would save the cloak effect of still having to render textures - of course the enemy would still see the ships as invisible...

posted on October 17th, 2012, 10:07 pm

I have actually considered making a transparent model, and instead of cloak, use a replaceweapon. The problem is, it would either be invisible to both players, or slightly visible to both.

posted on October 18th, 2012, 8:01 am

More engine difficulties...

But what if you tried to replace the "effect" of cloaking, that instead it turns transparent, it would turn black with a coloured wireframe?

posted on October 18th, 2012, 1:51 pm

I'm not sure that would be any easier on the engine.

Now, if you used Mr. V's new tool, for any cloaked ship, you could just add to the ships with cloak detection, the ability to fire on ships with matching levels, and then use the transparent model. Possibly put a ping on the map for where they are so you know.