Mesh size

[T.O]

Hi,

I'm currently working on my first aircraft, a F8-F Bearcat.
I modelled it in Rhino and now need to export it to GMAX.
What kind of mesh size (number of polygons) should I use to make it neat but FPS friendly ?

I also heard about some mesh smoothing tool in GMAX, can I then go for a rather coarse mesh and then use that tool to get a nice finish ?

Thanks for your help

[Katahu]

So far, there are 2 smoothing modifiers that you can use.

Meshsmooth modifier: Allows a lot of options which include smoothing the parts that you wanna smooth and many more. Very useful for aircraft modeling and human modeling.

Smooth modifier: Doesn't give much options compared to the Meshsmooth, however it does smooth out surfaces that are not so flat and it can help you avoid smoothing out edges. Very useful for car modeling.

Since my hobby is about cars for FS, the prefered tool is the Smooth modifier.

EDIT: My Gmax Project has up to 55,000+ polys and the FPS in FS is still not affected. That's enough polys to make a fully-loaded 747.

[dodongoxp]

hi .. as an advise if you want not only high end machines  could run it.. try not to overpass edit mesh 45000 polys.. maximum gmax number of polys is 60000 edit mesh polys

you can go higher with some tricks.. but it is not recomended...


remember the textures are the major load.. make sure your model without textures runs flawlessly ...so you have field for texturing

hope this helps

[T.O]

thanks guys  ;D ,
I have now a good starting point.
Though I'm currently stuck with the meshing tool in rhino. At some locations, I end up with mesh edges as small as 1 mm  ??? , no matter how coarse the mesh is elsewhere. But I'll play with the parameters and eventually find out what's wrong  ;)

[Travis]

maximum gmax number of polys is 60000 edit mesh polys

I once created a Demoiselle with 80,000+ polys and she flew beautifully.  Its just a heavy framerate killer, but you can have as many polys as you want (I think!).