Question: Cysts

Originengel

Why is it that a Cyst has 10,000 vertices? It really shouldn't have that many... When it looks like crap?

Are you guys using your Normal Map model for the ingame model? :\

Another question: Why is staring at a wall constantly swapping models in and out; when you aren't moving?

WonderWaffles

Bump - Also want to know

TimMc

<!--quoteo(post=2044828:date=Dec 12 2012, 11:51 PM:name=Originengel)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Originengel @ Dec 12 2012, 11:51 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2044828"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Are you guys using your Normal Map model for the ingame model? :\<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

lol if its really 10k then probably...

Desther

The shattered glass thats near SkyLights on Veil and Ballcourt in Docking are made up of lots of individual polygons. It make my graphics card cry a little bit every time we get near.

Azaral

10,000 what they hell?

_Necro_

I also want to know this. And why does Lava Falls in Refinery need 1000 models in this single room? Every other room in every other map has only about 300 - 500. I may have only a GForce 8800 GTX, but it's enough to play any other map with 30 - 40 FPS. (Even with bloom and atmospherics on 1280X800) Just Lava Falls kills my FPs to 14 - 20.

Originengel

Another statement:

I have a feeling all the Nvidia issues are due to the fact that you are calling something that Nvidia cards do not generally consider a "priority" in gaming.. Might want to check into that..

Champlo0

And that was the day we learned how to run NS2 on a Commodore

xen32

Now there's something you don't see everyday... thanks god.

Swiftspear

<!--quoteo(post=2044828:date=Dec 13 2012, 12:51 AM:name=Originengel)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Originengel @ Dec 13 2012, 12:51 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2044828"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why is it that a Cyst has 10,000 vertices?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Because it's a sphere wrapped if flexing cylinders sitting on half a hemisphere.

You could probably sneak a lot of the polies out of there, but fundamentally, round things are expensive and flat things are cheap. 10,000 isn't that many polies on today's game engines. For almost everyone that's probably not the bottleneck.

xxswatelitexx

Isn't verticies and polys different?

Essentially requires 3 verticies for 1 poly [triangle]
So essentially its only 3000 polys.

Originengel

Round things are expensive at times; however, as stated you can sneak a lot of the polygons and vertices out and have something that looks just as good. Especially if you add Normal Mapping on top of it. 10,000 for a Cyst should be the "Normal Map Model" not the ingame used model. And from what I am seeing is the engine seems to be just using Normal Map models instead of optimizing the models themselves.

Which leads to the latest trend in games of Alien's crashing players by dropping so many of their structures.

xen32

Is there a way to check out wireframe?

CrushaK

Wobble animations require a certain amount of extra vertices to look convincing.

xen32

<!--quoteo(post=2045128:date=Dec 13 2012, 02:12 PM:name=CrushaK)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CrushaK @ Dec 13 2012, 02:12 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2045128"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Wobble animations require a certain amount of extra vertices to look convincing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'd rather have few more fps than a convincing cyst.

Gliss

large amounts of cysts are pretty much the #1 performance hit so I don't see how it <i>couldn't</i> be the bottleneck

Ellen Ripley

Wait, seriously? Cysts have 10k vertices? That's completely overkill. A full sphere with only 1k vertices is more than adequate, and the little tendrils cannot possibly account for 9k. High detail is fine for normal maps, but nothing so small and insignificant as a cyst should have 10k vertices. It's not like a weapon that's going to be in the players face the whole time.

Makes me wonder how unnecessarily wasteful the other models are in terms of poly count. I hope that's a mistake.

WhiteWeasel

<!--quoteo(post=2045143:date=Dec 13 2012, 03:44 PM:name=Ellen Ripley)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Ellen Ripley @ Dec 13 2012, 03:44 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2045143"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Makes me wonder how unnecessarily wasteful the other models are in terms of poly count. I hope that's a mistake.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Is this why it runs so bad? If all/a majority of the polys in the game are like this;
<!--quoteo(post=0:date=:name=Jamie Hyneman)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Jamie Hyneman)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Well, there's your problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

AWhite

Polys aren't heavy. Draw calls are and overdraw are the problem.

elodea

i dno.. i think it would break the atmosphere for me if cysts wern't perfectly round..

Just me though.

TimMc

<!--quoteo(post=2045116:date=Dec 13 2012, 03:52 PM:name=xxswatelitexx)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (xxswatelitexx @ Dec 13 2012, 03:52 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2045116"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Isn't verticies and polys different?

Essentially requires 3 verticies for 1 poly [triangle]
So essentially its only 3000 polys.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

They will be sharing verticies, so its not that much lower.

And yeah, it sounds like someone is using the normal map model ingame.

xen32

The question is: is there another cysts model in game files, which has lower polycount?

Originengel

I'm more curious right now about the calls being made to the Nvidia cards. That and what kind of models the game is using ingame.

MuckyMcFly

<!--quoteo(post=2045643:date=Dec 14 2012, 02:59 PM:name=Originengel)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Originengel @ Dec 14 2012, 02:59 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2045643"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm more curious right now about the calls being made to the Nvidia cards. That and what kind of models the game is using ingame.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Me too.

Desther

The game uses .max (2009?) models. The sources were released but I don't think you can edit them unless you have a copy of Max.

Originengel

Not exactly what I meant, I meant what quality models. I.E. Are they actually inadvertently using a high-quality Normal Map Model as an actual in-game model.

Azaral

Polygons really aren't that bad, it's draw calls.

Gforce GTX 580 can do 2 billion triangles a second, which is 3,333,333.3333..... triangles every frame at 60 frames a second. <a href="http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gp...tx-580/features" target="_blank">http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gp...tx-580/features</a>

In terms of cysts, that's 11,111 cysts a frame.

Draw calls are the heaviest operation, which is the CPU telling the GPU what to draw.

Uruktos

As other people said, modern hardware and APIs are built on reducing the amount of draw calls. It doesn't really matter anymore if a model has 1k, 2k or 5k polys. Especially with stuff like cysts that usually cause 2 draw calls at max, it's a non issue. To put it on perspective, Crysis 2 had a polygon budget of 2 million. You can go even higher than that with custom maps and game would still have great performance as long as it isn't choked by draw calls.

Cysts slowness is probably caused by the vertex shader abuse and gameplay logic like maintaining cyst chains, detecting breakage, range and so on.

There is also some funky math going on in this thread. 10k vertices doesn't make 3k polygons. 10k vertices would make a little less than 10k triangles, if the model is perfectly quad, that would make 5k polygons. High res mesh for normal map making would require at least 100k tris even at that size, artists would probably use <b>at least</b> 500k because they can.

Tinker

Yeah, I'm no pro modeler but 3 verts to 1 poly and then 4 verts (Total) for the second means you can't just divide by 3 ^_^