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Need some advice on scaling models

mhlarsen

mhlarsen

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176
Country
denmark
When creating models for FSX I often come across 'thin objects' like hand-railing, pipes, wires that is hard to decide whether to include in the model or leave out.
Eg. Hand-railing seems to bring 'finish' to the model, but the railing is so thin, like 1-2 cm. that it often seems 'transparent', messy or disappears unless close-up.

I need some advice for these kinds of objects.
Create them at a larger scale? Eg. 1-2 cm. becomes 3-5 to increase 'visibility'?

Any rules of thumb for this kind of design?


Michael
 
Bernardo,

This means that I could create a 'texture' that is pure alpha channel and apply it to these objects?


Michael
 
No, as simpy as paint the object, railing wirings, and apply the texture (with alpha channels) to a plane, it's used a lot with many objects, like handrail, if the lines or wires are too thin it's no worth modeling them with splines or cylinder, but all this is according the developer taste. just opinions.
 
Bernardo,

Ok, I see. Very interesting solution.

As an example what would be the optimal dimension for a handrail for either painting or modeling?


Michael
 
I try to make them the real dimensions and let them disappear when you are not close up.
 
Hi,

As already mentioned there are two things here.

One is the question if you model them as geometry or if you include them in the texture you use. The last case requires less polygons (and thus often better performance). But modelling them as 3D can give even more realistic results. For important details I prefer to model them as geometry, but most of the other details I would try to put in the texture.

When there are problems with the object flickering in the distance due to these small details, you could consider to add levels of detail. That will ensure that those parts are not shown at a distance anymore.
 
Arno,

I am currently building an offshore platform and there is an insane amount of handrails, pipes etc., but that seems to very characteristic and important for these installations.

I understand LOD would be a way to hide some of these objects at distance as also tgibson suggests, so I will try that.
Performance at sea seems to be of lesser importance, but it would still be nice to optimize the model.


Thanks
Michael
 
Hi Michael.

Assuming you would land with a helicopter on the oil rig, I would indeed model the details as geometry as well. When you get close to them, it will look better.

And if you try to keep the amount of drawcalls down the performance should not be too bad.
 
In sketchup you can't make the levels of detail directly. What you would have to do is make different versions of your model. Each will then be exported as a collada object. In modelconverterx you can then import the simplified versions as lod versions of the most complex one.

For transparency you need to add an alpha channel to your textures.
 
arno said:
In sketchup you can't make the levels of detail directly. What you would have to do is make different versions of your model. Each will then be exported as a collada object. In modelconverterx you can then import the simplified versions as lod versions of the most complex one.

For transparency you need to add an alpha channel to your textures.
Click to expand...

how does one edit the alpha channel? i prefer freeware.
 
Any painting program should do. GIMP or Paint.NET or so.
 
For the alpha channel you will need to first use a program like DXTBmp.

1. Download and install from the MWGraphics site.
2. Open your image in DXTBmp.
3. The alpha channel is the little image at the upper right.
4. Use the Alpha/Send to Editor command to send your image to your paint program (set that up first in Options). This is GIMP, PSP, Photoshop, MS Paint, etc.
5. Edit the alpha channel as needed, save the file.
6. Use Alpha/Return-Update alpha channel command to load edited alpha channel.
7. Save the image.

Hope this helps,
 
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