F-16 C Build Thread

I'm throwing a lot of polys at this plane. I'm at just over 42,000. Crazy to type that in. Keeping everything under 20k has been burned into my soul.
Anyways I'll keep a close eye on that number and will reduce the number of fully modeled parts in the cockpit if need be. Having room on the texture for everything will be a challenge too. I will have to bake the metal switches and screws most likely. Slowly moving on.
 

Attachments

  • Cpit_01.png
    Cpit_01.png
    1.4 MB · Views: 34
  • Cpit_02.png
    Cpit_02.png
    1.4 MB · Views: 36
  • CpitGrab_1.png
    CpitGrab_1.png
    803 KB · Views: 36
  • CpitGrab_2.png
    CpitGrab_2.png
    977 KB · Views: 36
WOW, don`t know what shot I like best this time, the one`s with color, or, the ones showing the modeling (if that`s right..??) Ha, yep, it would be nice to have a bigger texture/map to work with for sure, take your time, it`ll be will worth the wait for everyone.
 
It’s definitely odd at times thinking about just how many polys you can burn now and how we used to have to get real creative to save them. I haven’t checked lately but I think my Pitts is around 35-40k, most of which are in wires and the tail gear though.
 
When you guys refer to polys what exactly are you talking about?
See what I outlined in the photo of the cockpit, would that be considered as one poly?
 

Attachments

  • CpitGrab_1.png
    CpitGrab_1.png
    885 KB · Views: 12
Maybe. We try and avoid triangles and faces with more than 4 sides. RF triangulates the quads into two polys. So, in short, a poly is a triangle face.
 
A poygon is a base unit of geometry comprised of 3 sides with 3 points. It is the base unit because moving any point or edge cannot bend the triangle only re-orient the plane. We model using visible quads to simplify what we are manipulating but a quad is made up of 2 triangles. Real Flight used to only allow 20,000 polys for the entire plane including a simplified shell called a collision mesh. A collision mesh uses a very low number of poly to lighten the mathematical load on the software during collisions for reaction of the collided parts. Not a lot to work with at all. They changed that a few versions ago and now allow 130,000 polys. 6.5 times greater than before.
 
So you are talking about all the polygon shapes that create a surface area and there is a limit to how many can be used?
 
Correct
However with the current system I don't think there is a real limit. They used to have an exporter that checked the number. now they use a industry standard exporter. So unless they built a counter into the importer in the sim I think you could go as high as you want until it breaks the sim.
Edit: Just found out for myself they have built in a counter but it says 135,000 poly are the limit.
 
Last edited:
Am I confusing the definition of a polygon with a term you guys use for something else? I thought a polygon can be any two dimensional shape with straight sides?
 
Boof69 said:
A poygon is a base unit of geometry comprised of 3 sides with 3 points. It is the base unit because moving any point or edge cannot bend the triangle only re-orient the plane. We model using visible quads to simplify what we are manipulating but a quad is made up of 2 triangles. Real Flight used to only allow 20,000 polys for the entire plane including a simplified shell called a collision mesh. A collision mesh uses a very low number of poly to lighten the mathematical load on the software during collisions for reaction of the collided parts. Not a lot to work with at all. They changed that a few versions ago and now allow 130,000 polys. 6.5 times greater than before.
Click to expand...

Ok i just re read this, makes sense now
 
Your totally right. Polygon is a misnomer but it is what everyone calls it. Poly means many so it is misused. If it has more than 4 sides we call it a ngon...?
 
So back in like the RealFlight 3.5 days you guys only had 20,000 polys to work with? Thats impressive, I remember some very cool work from people back then.
 
No wonder you are going crazy with the details on the F-16, is this the first model you have done with the new limit? To help me put it into perspective how many polys did your F4U-1 Corsair have?
 
In the editor in RF it says 20,574 but I know it was just under 20k
I checked my Corsair file and the total was 19,998
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top