DIFs vs. DTS
by Jerane Alleyne · in Torque Game Engine · 04/24/2002 (7:54 am) · 3 replies
Another question while I'm in PC-limbo...
Sometime ago, our group was discussing our game having destructabel buildings. Now, while this is not great feat, its pretty much understood that the buildings or structures would have to be .DTS file, or rather shapebase images. As such, it was alluded that if we were to say, make a city using these instead of .DIF models, we would see a performance hit, which is understandable.
What I'm mainly asking is this: what kind of performance hit would you most likely see if we were to use the shapebase method to make buildings? They wouldn't be terribly complex, mainly cubes, rectangles and the like. I'm not sure if adding LOD would make a difference here. At the maxumum, we would have around 15-20 bulidings in most cases, and a minimum of 10 in others. I believe I remember the DTS object generator that was used for stuff like randomly adding trees and the like could help in performance...could something like that work here if that's the case? I won't be able to try any of these thigns out for probably another few days, so if anyone already has some insight, I'd much appreciate it. Hope I made sense with this question!
Thanks a lot
Jerane Alleyne
==============
Lead Artist
www.eventalpha.com
Sometime ago, our group was discussing our game having destructabel buildings. Now, while this is not great feat, its pretty much understood that the buildings or structures would have to be .DTS file, or rather shapebase images. As such, it was alluded that if we were to say, make a city using these instead of .DIF models, we would see a performance hit, which is understandable.
What I'm mainly asking is this: what kind of performance hit would you most likely see if we were to use the shapebase method to make buildings? They wouldn't be terribly complex, mainly cubes, rectangles and the like. I'm not sure if adding LOD would make a difference here. At the maxumum, we would have around 15-20 bulidings in most cases, and a minimum of 10 in others. I believe I remember the DTS object generator that was used for stuff like randomly adding trees and the like could help in performance...could something like that work here if that's the case? I won't be able to try any of these thigns out for probably another few days, so if anyone already has some insight, I'd much appreciate it. Hope I made sense with this question!
Thanks a lot
Jerane Alleyne
==============
Lead Artist
www.eventalpha.com
#2
05/01/2002 (5:38 am)
The biggest issue would be that DIFs are BSP trees while DTSs are simply meshes. You wouldn't be taking advantage of any portalling, collision, or culling features of BSP trees which are what help keep fps high. What you could do is model the building with certain parts broken and then use dts shapes to 'patch up' the shape to make it look whole. When one of those gets shot you simply blow it up and use the shape as a debris piece. You wouldn't use many of these for obvious reasons but it'd be a decent effect now if you planned to have something like Red Faction then you'll need to make some big changes.
#3
Thanks!
Jerane Alleyne
==============
Lead Artist
www.eventalpha.com
05/02/2002 (5:44 am)
Actually, we were considering something similar to what you described...making past of the structure as .DTS models so they are destructable. Perhaps we can split the difference, use DTS models for the more simple structures (basic retangular building, vehicle props...anyhting that you wouldn't have to enter), and DIFs fo rthe more complex ones. Guess that's worth a try :)Thanks!
Jerane Alleyne
==============
Lead Artist
www.eventalpha.com
Torque Owner Jerane Alleyne
Default Studio Name
Thanks anyway :P
Jerane Alleyne
==============
Lead Artist
www.eventalpha.com