SS2 list of broken and lowpoly objects that need fixing

[6736d6583103aZylonBane]

How bad does the mortuary get? It has like six or eight of them.

[6736d658311bavoodoo47]

it's only four, actually - 50 vs 38FPS.

[6736d65831306ZylonBane]

Oh yeah.

It just occurred to me that it would be easy to put a model tweq on an object that would switch it to a different model on sim start, allowing any object to use a different model for lightmap generation. I don't think that should be done here, but it's an interesting capability to have.

[6736d658313fdvoodoo47]

why not? the original object being 2d is not really a problem - it's only observable at a couple of places, and you have to look really hard to notice.

[6736d6583150eZylonBane]

I disagree. It's subtle, but it is noticeable when they have true depth. We've just been looking at the old 2D grates for so long that they seem normal.

Look at, for example, the window frames in Half Life 2. Sure, Valve could have gotten away with using transparent flats for them, but they're actual 3D models.

[6736d65831612voodoo47]

I suppose.

anyway, no problem with improvements like this eating away some FPS - I doubt there are too many people running the game on converted thin clients (or any other bottom of the barrel devices, the heyday of atom cpus is long gone), and the framerate drop will be negligible on any other computer.

[6736d658317b1JML]

A detail like that eating on your fps that heavily is okay once, but consider SHTUP, new doors, new things here and improved things there and it adds up to a heavy game. If Olfred can put in extra work to find a good balance between performance and quality then he should do it. That's only in line with the other efforts made here IMO.

[6736d658319afvoodoo47]

trust me, a thin client which is probably much slower than the phone in your pocket losing one fifth FPS over an updated resource is not an issue - this is a test scenario, very unlikely to happen in real life. but I agree, if a resource can be optimized, it definitely should be - no sense in cutting into performance unnecessarily, even if it's just a few FPS.

any computer with a dedicated gpu from the last decade and half will see next to no FPS drops when comparing unmodded and fully modded SS2 - remember, with a few exceptions like four hundred, most mods still operate within oldDark limits, so they don't need much of extra cpu/gpu power.

the hires doors are an exception - while I didn't check the models in any sort of model editor, I'm quite sure they are only few polys away from implosion, as the authors are not exactly known for exercising restraint (in any area).

[6736d65831a9cZylonBane]

Which hi res doors?

[6736d65831bc4voodoo47]

here's the topic where they are.. contained, with a bunch of other things keeping them company.

didn't check with the thin client, but they murder performance very efficiently on my hp dc7700 (C2D, GMA3000).

[6736d65831cbbZylonBane]

Ah, those. Yeah I think we're doing okay compared to them. And Gecko, who complains that NewDark "only" supports 99-frame animated textures.

[6736d65831db6voodoo47]

yeah, as mentioned in that topic, if you are hitting your head on a limit of some sort every second step you take, you are probably doing it wrong.

[6736d65831ecdZylonBane]

So, I filled a room with 21 of the 3D grates, and the frame rate never dipped below a solid 60 FPS. This is on a Radeon 7800, a 2012 card. At 30 grates it finally dipped down to ~55 FPS. I wouldn't even have noticed the drop without FRAPS.

[6736d65831fb7voodoo47]

yes, as mentioned, a 12FPS dip on the thin client is pretty much nothing on any proper computer from the early dx9 era or newer.

[6736d658322cdOlfred]

please check if you like this one.
And should I give the texture another name?
[RGRATE01.bin expired]

[6736d658323e0ZylonBane]

Sorry I took so long to get back to you on this. Looks good! Is it using the vanilla texture?

Couple of issues-- this version shows up in DromEd as having 0 depth, and the model seems to be aligned above its center plane. Was this intentional?

[6736d658324eaOlfred]

Currently it is set to the same texture name as the vanilla. I can change it to another texture name if wanted.

Yes, so it can replace the old model without any adjustments.

[6736d65832607ZylonBane]

Texture name is good.

It would be best to have the dimensions and alignment match the actual physical object. It's impossible for the 3D grate model to function as a drop-in replacement, because there's no consistency to which facing the grate objects were placed with. They'll all have to be manually adjusted.

[6736d65832711Olfred]

Well, to change the dimension in the editor is no problem, it's just a matter of letting the exporter create a new bounding box.
But how do you want the alignment to be?

[6736d65832843ZylonBane]

Centered. No vestiges of its former 2D self. 

[6736d6583294fOlfred]

How about this one?
[RGRATE01.bin expired]

[6736d65832abdZylonBane]

Dims/alignment good. But some more in-game testing revealed a problem when it's close to a light... it's displaying odd shading, almost like the surface normals aren't correct. Also, possibly related, it looks like the entire model is set to smoothed-- no sharp edges. I guess our options are to either just crease the edges, or get rid of smooth shading entirely. That might look worse though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExoHh4KVqss

[6736d65832be5Olfred]

Oh, yeah. It's been a while since I worked on any ss2 models.
Making it flat should also get rid of the lighting problems.

I made a new model but I don't know if this fixes the lighting problem as I simply forgot the command to enable lighting in the editor and couldn't find any list of commands that had the command in it.
[RGRATE01.bin expired]

[6736d65832cc1voodoo47]

toggle_lighting in the command window, but everything should be in the available menus (View for this particular one).