Non-csg environments
by David Marsh · in Torque Game Engine · 09/25/2006 (12:23 pm) · 6 replies
I'm working on a racing project and I think torque would be a great engine so far, but I have some questions about handling the environment. I want to use polygonal environments vertex lit in maya, not terrain or csg. I was thinking that I could just place the entire environment as a static model, and use invisible csg geometry for colision. The only question is wether the engine can handle rendering the entire environment as one model. The environments are going to be somewhat low poly but even so I'm not sure it can handle everything being rendered all the time. Is there some sort of system built into torque that could help me here? If I chopped up the level into different segments in maya, could the engine display only the parts of the level that are on screen or would that system have to be built by hand? To be specific about why I want polygonal environments from maya, I don't want to be limited by csg rules for geometry and I want to vertext light the scene in maya instead of using ingame lighting.
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#2
09/25/2006 (9:53 pm)
The level would probably be broken up into zones if needed. I just would rather stay away from using a csg / model prop combination since the environments aren't going to be very modular and lend themselves to that style of construction. There is going to be lots of detail and little details all around the player but the track and collision is going to be very simple. The style I want to do would also lend itself much more to pre-lighting in maya with vertex level control as opposed to using the in game lighting engine.
#3
09/25/2006 (11:09 pm)
Doing a little extra thinking about it and looking at the demo mission editor, it seems like I might be able to take a complete polygonal environment in sections and place them as model objects in the editor. That way the sections of the course would not render when off-screen correct? I could even lod parts of the level. I would then export a seperate invisible set of csg geometry for track collision. The only issues I could see with that are having to line up each section perfectly by hand, and I don't know if torque supports baked vertex lit models.
#4
09/25/2006 (11:59 pm)
Using MEL scripts it is possible to do your level layout in Maya and export a MIS file. The only thing is that lining up your CSG to match the poly models might be painful. Unless someone has a solution for using lighting from external sources in the form of vertex or lightmaps then I dont think youll be able to. I wrote a solution to use lightmaps out of Maya but it broke LOD and it was too hacky so I threw it out.
#5
09/26/2006 (9:02 am)
Sounds like a lot of work, mabe I will have to consider using something like worldcraft after all
#6
12/05/2006 (7:39 am)
A project I'm working on did something similar as a rapid prototype. Basically making a small, low-detail city in Maya and dropping it Torque as a static. Performance is terrible and collision doesnt work (but it was just a prototype anyway). So I advise against it and just use the recommended art assest creation methods. =) 
Torque 3D Owner Tony Richards
If your complete model is less than 20k polygons then it might be able to handle it, but beyond that you'd simply have to try it to find out.
Is there any way you can break the model up into zones?