72 replies to this topic

[Buck]

Also, whatever you've done with your water there - Looks INCREDIBLY good...

[RobC]

I'd lose the reflective ocean water too probably a big FPS hit there

[Buck]

I'd lose the reflective ocean water too probably a big FPS hit there

 

Whoa!

Can we have a version w/ reflections optionally!?

[M Rose]

That's just the standard ocean plane. You are right in that it is probably not necessary for it to be reflective. The entire course is one pretty big FPS eater right now, so I'm still trying to figure some things out.

 

I don't have a tri count, but one of the larger houses is about 2,500 polygons. Others are in the 1,000 to 1,500 range so I'm guessing right there that that is a big part of my issues.

[Crow357]

How many tris are in a polygon?

[DoGgs]

yes i would say that 2500 for one house is excessive, all my builds contain structures that are well under a 1000 of course they never look as good, but its a trade off as we all know.  there are so many nice structures on sketchup that i would love to use, but i always end up going for something low poly and fps friendly.

[M Rose]

I've taken all of them out for now because they were just destroying the work flow. I might have about five minutes of work before it locked up and I haven't been able to successfully do a course build, even when I left it alone for an hour.

[Acrilix]

You mentioned swimming pools. Maybe these or other parts of the houses have reflective surfaces too? 

[DPRoberts]

How many tris are in a polygon?

Typically 2-3. So, a tri count is typically at least double a poly count.

[DPRoberts]

Several of the Speedtrees are 3500 tris and contain at least 6 textures and do ok. Maybe this has to do with LOD and the texture atlas generated. I have not spent time on LOD of buildings. However, if the object is repeated, the texture has to be loaded once I believe and drawn as many times as objects. So, it could come down to 5 buildings in view with 4 textures being like 20 textures at 2-4mb a piece.

It's the reason I have tried to build based on 1-2 textures and share a material when possible. I doubt most of Sketchup is optimized for games.

However, with a bit of work, I'm guessing a lot of the houses could be adjusted to work better. Somewhat like what Gary did with the speed trees. But, it may involve both model optimizing and texture/material optimizing.

Sounds like something I might enjoy giving a try. But, I would also check what happens if you change your ocean as RobC suggested. I felt MJ4wateradvanced didn't really impact my Kiawah significantly.

You also were doing ok until adding the Cypress. Maybe you can tweak the trees LOD and get a better result.

[garynorman]

You also were doing ok until adding the Cypress. Maybe you can tweak the trees LOD and get a better result.

 

Agreed...  From experience the LOD settings on the trees can make a huge difference to frame rate.

[Dazmaniac]

The devil is in the detail, as they say, lol.

 

If houses are 100yds away from the course, I don't personally care if they are not textured to the hilt, especially if it has a knock on effect with course performance. I'm not one for flying around the plots and picking faults with what designers might have missed property wise. I'm more interested on the 18 holes I'm doing battle with.

 

Yes, it's nice to have some environmental surrounds to give the feel of the real life venue, but they sure ain't the be all and end all for me.

 

At the end of the day, it is up to the designer what they put out. I will have my opinion and many others will have theirs. Suffice to say, we appreciate what you create at the end of the day.

[KenR]

Personally Matt, it would not bother me if there were no houses on the course at all; just the clubhouse and lodge around the 18th would suffice. Totally up to you of course...

[Buck]

Perhaps a "no buildings" beta release that's in the wild and being tested while building work is taking place?

[M Rose]

I am 99% certain it was the houses. I was just downloading and plugging in random sketchup houses and after a half dozen or so, it had a real effect on everything. So I took them out for the time being, and also removed the reflections in the ocean. Right now it is running like a dream... it just still looks kind of unfinished now. I've never been great at that part of the process anyway and it is probably one reason why I don't do more real courses.
 

I actually was thinking this afternoon while playing it that I could probably put out a beta without the buildings.... that's really about the only thing that is holding it up. There's still a lot of the overhead image showing through which to my eyes makes it look really unfinished. I'm at a point where major decisions need to be made because my goal has always been to release this before Christmas, so I should probably get it into beta as soon as possible.

[Curious George]

One of my all time favourite courses.  Thank you for your hard work Matt constructing this one.  Looking forward to playing this when its released.

[DoGgs]

Matt i would not be getting so picky with yourself m8, if you have a house that sits on the edge of the rough then yes try to add it in, but something way way back is not required imo, these things can be picked up with people using the follow cam as the ball reaches its pinnacle mid air, but quite a lot of people use reverse cam and with that you would be hard pressed to see over a bush, let alone whats way out. It's all about the course for me, i almost expect to see some traces of heightmap somewhere, its no big deal, i'm sure 99% of people feel the same.

[yesrushdt]

There's still a lot of the overhead image showing through which to my eyes makes it look really unfinished.

 

I agree.  I don't mind seeing it in beta courses  but  the overhead image should be  removed by designers in their final version.

[Buck]

I agree.  I don't mind seeing it in beta courses  but  the overhead image should be  removed by designers in their final version.

 

We talking about the sat imagery?

I totally agree if so.

 

Those are such low quality usually that they absolutely ruin the look of a course if it's showing up too much.

[DoGgs]

Buck do you mean if the imagery contains houses you should be putting houses on top of it, or maybe texture over it like grass or something?  Because placing houses all around the map is gonna do nothing but slow it down.  I'm saying this also because scottsdale has so many periphary houses that it would be madness to fill them all with 3d objects, i certainly wont be doing it.