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Are total # of pixels the same for sketchup?

Clutch Cargo

Clutch Cargo

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By that, I mean is it just as important to optimize your schetchups as if you were working with Max? Or can you get away with more for better performance (or even worse)? Here's why I ask.

I just picked up a new payware release called 'Scenic Utopia - San Diego Buildings', (anything having to do with San Diego I have to investigate), and the performance is so bad it makes the sim unflyable. That is if I can even get FSX to load with the add-on activated.

Looks like it is all just sketch-up buildings. When I did get FSX to load I turned all settings down to minimum... no autogen, no AI, no traffic, no other scenery, no weather - clear skies. Even at that this addon would take 50% of my FPS.

No looking at my Aerosoft cities X - Los Angeles and Las Vegas, they too have a lot of sketchup in their products - I would venture to say even more. But they perform real nice with my setup (I have a high end 5GHz system).

But this addon has 2GB of textures alone - normal for sketchup? I plan to learn sketchup to supplement my Max as I thought you could get away with a little bit more. But now I am confused. Any input most welcomed. Oh, just checked my FSX after typing. It is still trying to load this addon, ha!

Merry Christmas,

Clutch

(By the way, it sells for $15 but with my points I aquired in past purchases it only cost me $2, so I won't ask for a refund. Program has a one page user manual with no contact info. It says if you want help go the Bojote's site for tweaking. Even the program knows you will get OOM errors. Pretty surprised this was released in such a condition. Beware!)
 
Clutch Cargo said:
By that, I mean is it just as important to optimize your schetchups as if you were working with Max? Or can you get away with more for better performance (or even worse)? Here's why I ask.

I just picked up a new payware release called 'Scenic Utopia - San Diego Buildings', (anything having to do with San Diego I have to investigate), and the performance is so bad it makes the sim unflyable. That is if I can even get FSX to load with the add-on activated.

Looks like it is all just sketch-up buildings. When I did get FSX to load I turned all settings down to minimum... no autogen, no AI, no traffic, no other scenery, no weather - clear skies. Even at that this addon would take 50% of my FPS.

No looking at my Aerosoft cities X - Los Angeles and Las Vegas, they too have a lot of sketchup in their products - I would venture to say even more. But they perform real nice with my setup (I have a high end 5GHz system).

But this addon has 2GB of textures alone - normal for sketchup? I plan to learn sketchup to supplement my Max as I thought you could get away with a little bit more. But now I am confused. Any input most welcomed. Oh, just checked my FSX after typing. It is still trying to load this addon, ha!

Merry Christmas,

Clutch

(By the way, it sells for $15 but with my points I aquired in past purchases it only cost me $2, so I won't ask for a refund. Program has a one page user manual with no contact info. It says if you want help go the Bojote's site for tweaking. Even the program knows you will get OOM errors. Pretty surprised this was released in such a condition. Beware!)
Click to expand...

Are the textures on a texture sheet or each its own individual file?
 
Hi Clutch

I don't think it has anything to do with Sketchup in itself (I use it too), but more on how the author (mis)used it ;-) You'll have to take into account the same rules you would with Gmax or 3DSMax, i.e. watch the number of polygons, drawcalls and the size of your textures...... if you don't and just take the default Sketchup as it is often used via the GoogleEarth direct placement/design mode, you're toast.
 
I've seen simples sketchups models with one hundred texture files, incredible, I can't believe those guys get the sketchup models from warehouse and sell as payware addon :confused: you could try with the drawcall minimizer with those models.
 
Francois is right; the same rules apply. An unoptimizied skethup model can have 100s of materials (textures) for an extremely simple model.

"Sounds" like someone downloaded the unchanged 3D warehouse objects for the area and sold it as their own work.
 
Thx for the quick replies, guys. I believe that must be what he had done. Just ported the textures directly over. I am seeing texture and bgl files for individual street addresses. How about 138 texture files for 5th Ave Pizza? Makes me wonder if this was beta tested?

While I hate to jump on the back of any designer but when they leave no contact info, and the only suggestion is to use the Bojote tweaks (which I have been running for a few years), the only remedy is to go to one of the big websites and warn others.

This will actually work well with me as I am planing to resume my work on San Diego and this will serve as a good test bed on what to look out for.

Feel sorry for the guy as I do not want to cause him grief. I think this may be his first project.
 
sure can be of help for other scenery projects, and for the price it's good enough, all this involve a little of work but he must make clear that the objects come from sketchup, or something so. anyway we are making conjectures, maybe they have created all the buildings, but not taking care of the texturing of the building.
 
You're certainly right about 5th ave pizza.

To answer your question, yes there was a beta of sorts. I first released a freeware version on flightsim.com with over 800 downloads with no formal complaints.

As far as sketchup textures go, most buildings had no textures whatsoever and I had to add them using street view or from birds-eye, etc.

After applying textures, all objects had drawcalls minimized and textures were reduced to the best capacity of Model Converter X.

Further, many buildings were created from scratch using Sketchup tools. A problem with using Sketchup for textures is that the street view and aerial views result in large texture files. Even when they're reduced by Model Converter, they can still be combersome.

Due to your complaints, I'm having to call this project a failure (even though it works perfectly on my system!). -I have to remember that it's not being created for me but for you.

The last thing I want is to sell people something that they aren't happy with.

It does no good if my system is the only one it works on.

I'm creating a stripped down version just for you. -Maybe instead of 1,194 buildings, I'll just have 600 or so.
 
Are your end-user instructions telling them to delete default files from their FSX installation? A posting at FlightSim mentions this.
 
Hey there, just saw your reply here. Just sent you an email.

800 downloads and no complaints? That's quite remarkable. Maybe because, as you said many of the buildings were not textured. Please do not call this project a failure just because of one complaint... from me. Maybe I end up being the sole complainer! Then the problem is me, not your project. And I will be happy to retract any negative statement if I have done wrong. I have no problem admitting wrong if I have done so.

What I did see when the program did load was some real nice stuff. I'm gonna mess with it today.... try to break down some areas to see any clues. Will also double-check my system.

Clutch
 
No, not to delete. Simply to remove from their directories. For example, to put them into a backup folder as they would otherwise, conflict.
 
Do you realize that the APX file contains 48 airports? Did you redo all those airports with your work? Start up at Avalon on Catalina Island, the John Wayne Airport, Miramar, Gillespie, Montgomery, they all disappear if you haven't redone them. Just big green empty places. The OBX file has over 1400 objects placed throughout SW SoKali, did you replace all of them? Because they are now all gone otherwise. You didn't kill off Disneyland, did you??? :duck:
 
Hi,

Why not use an exclude to remove default objects? No need to alter default files in 99.9% of the cases.

About the original question. The modeling tool used does not matter. For best performance the same rules apply. That in general means try to get your object in one drawcall. It's up to the author to use the modeling tool right, with sketchup or 3ds max you can make scenery with the same performance. Fsx only seems the mdl and is not aware where it comes from anyway.
 
Hello Arno,

I've actually done just that. I've made an excludable and I'm re-releasing after a thorough optimization.

By the way Arno, thank you for making FS development so accessible to the layman. If it weren't for you, I'm not sure I'd ever thought to mess with it.

As humiliating as this has been, it hasn't been without good lessons and I'm proud to say I finally have a stable version. Hopefully I can recover my reputation and keep moving forward with knowledge and products. :)
 
Lesson should also be that if you want to release commercial products, better get in touch with experienced publishers FIRST....... whether or not you are going to publish with them is irrelevant, but they could have warned you for the things to watch out for.... and the consequences if you don't ;)

Life was never simple, you know ! :D
 
I certainly did that however, unlike their proceedures state, they didn't even try it out prior to releasing. They also knew this was a brand new venture.

What can I say other than it's better to learn the hard way than not at all.

At least I give a damn about fixing it.
 
I had a look ....... Ah, I see. You went with 'them'. That's a distributor, not a real publisher ;) Some of the of the larger ones are just in it for the money and have to rely on volume, not quality.

I am happy to see you are taking things to heart and are around at FSDeveloper. Make sure to tell your customers too what is happening. It is SO easy to lose a good name and it will take 10 years or more to recover it..... !!

Kind regards,
Francois
 
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