[Vehicle] AMZ Dzik [WIP](PL)

[ddeo]

Hi lucky.boy I think I can answer some of your questions as you're really helpful nowadays. First of all thanks for finding out issues with the texture, I already reported before few of them to flamaster.

As for missaligned texture (green arrow from second photo) there was a big problem with this place since texture had doors before and doors do not exist on this side of the vehicle. Hopefuly flamaster will be able to smooth it.

For p3d view flamaster disabled hood, mirrors and all exterior parts of the vehicle, but you can see them on the renders from max few post above.

Gunner will probably use interior model.

Cheers!

[flamaster69]

Lucky, I've corrected errors.

[flamaster69]

p3d with gunner view. Unfortunatelly I can't put more than one map in obj, so interior is with same material as exterior. That's why I constatly put dzik without gunner view. And the second is with exterior is hard to see what's inside.


[/IMG]

[flamaster69]

Hi everyone!
I have a question about Level Of Details

How many variations should I prepare?
What is the count of tris for each variation?

As I now there is lod0, lod1, lod2, lod3, where lod0 is an original model.

Below lod1, 2, 3. and number of tris.

[Amok@ndy]

your lod2 has far to much detail, also on the lod3 you could make the tires use less polys

[lucky.BOY]

Also keep in mind that LOD1 is visible to even up close to low gfx clients, so you want to have all the important stuff in it. For example you shouldnt just delete the interior of LOD1.
And if you do delete the interior on the later LODs, replace it with a flat plane (with the general colour of the interior), so you cant see the terrain through wind shield. Another way to do this might be to make windows not transparent, but you must not forget to put cap the gunners hole, too.

As a general rule for LODs you need to preserve the general shiluette of the object and prominent color shemes. For that reason i would put the reserve wheel back on your LOD3 , but make it a simple box (or max a 5-sided), same should work for the rest of wheels. You can also replace the gunner turret with a simple squarish thing.
Talking about colors, when you remove the air intakes and grenade lanchers, the black below them really stands out. You should replace those black spot on the texture with a something that more resembles what is on top of them. Shapes sticking out of the shiluette, like those color lights and grenade launchers, should be only three sided on one LOD before they go. Here on one LOD they seem overly smooth, and on other LOD they are gone, You either have to unsmooth them on first, or put them back on the second, but heavily unsmoothed. Cant really tell what it is in your case, but would guess its the former.

As for number of LODs, you should make them until you end up with a simple shape of the object, with tris count being below 100 tris.

And you should not delete the underside of the vehicle on any lod, if it gets turned upside down it will look horrible from distance.

EDIT: Also looking back at your post of gunner view, you might want to smooth up those cages around those lights on top of the roof, they look bad from that point of view.

[Psyrus]

Lucky's advice is pretty much spot on, as someone who did a fair amount of work with the different vehicle LODS the following were my pet peeves:

1. Texture/color changes between lods
2. The interiors being entirely deleted which makes the lod switches even at hundreds of meters really obvious
3. Profiles [and sometimes even sizes!] being different between LODs
4. Sub-objects being simplified but then not moved on the model to compensate for their slightly altered shape, thus affecting point #3
5. Really similar LOD1&2s, but then a super-simplified LOD3 which meant that 4000+tris are being rendered out to 250m+ [please avoid this]

I am seriously no expert, but for your purposes, given the size and lack of complexity of the vehicle, I'd say LOD0-3 will be enough, but I'd shoot for about 60-70% as many tris on LOD2 [~2000] and then simplify LOD3 to ~300-400, mostly from your wheels and maybe the doors/bonnet/gunner position of your car. Also, please put a plane or two on the inside for an interior!!! Maybe at lOD3 you can get away with nothing on the inside, but for 2 tri's I think it'd still be worth it

[Mineral]