Hello, I was wondering if Unity triangulates meshes at render time or if it leaves quads as quads. And if it triangulates, how good of a job it does. Whenever I have used the “triple” function in 3D Ive had to go back and clean up the mesh a little by hand.
Also wondering if it seems to be fancy shading or polycounts that deal the biggest blows to performance.
Annnnd where I may be able to find various random information like that.
Cheers,
CEH
I’m not sure if Unity triangulates meshes. My guess would be yes. I guess this because the Mesh class has a GetTriangles() method ;). You can also see that Mesh class has a Optimizie() method to, well, optimize the geometry 
http://unity3d.com/Documentation/ScriptReference/Mesh.html
As for other areas, you can see where the problems usually lie here:
http://unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/Optimizing%20Graphics%20Performance.html
It does triangulate on IMPORT. I had some bad geometry about a year ago and some tringles dissappeared on import, but theres been heaps of engine updates since then, along with vast improvements in my modelling. No problems like that since.
If you crush a mesh up like a ball of paper, and stretch it weirdly etc, bad things might happen. I tend to triangulate about2/3 of the way through modelling to get the best result/most control.
hth
AC
Yep, Unity does triangulation on import. All quads in any program have to get triangulated at some point, since that’s how graphics cards work, so I assume it’s fastest to have the models in Unity be stored as triangles. I’ve had a problem once or twice with quads not getting converted quite right, but I usually save in triangles now anyway.
–Eric
Unity automaticall triangulates on import.
The thing is that triangulates “right” does not exist. There are many ways to triangulate, different algorithms optimizing for different criteria. Different modellers also triangulate differently. So if you want it to look exactly like in the art package, triangulate it there.
Thanks for all the replies and the info, I’m new around these waters and need to find my way around… don’t have a mac to really dig into unity with.
Anyone know if these example projects will be updated with 2.0?, that would be Uber. http://unity3d.com/examples/index.html
Also, I didn’t see a windows port of GooBall… I would think that it would have been a good idea… Id have purchased it…
CEH
Usually it’s the shading. I.e. how complex shaders run on how many pixels, and how many times each pixel is drawn (“overdraw”).
Except when you’re running on some low-end integrated cards, like Intel ones. They don’t have hardware vertex transformation, so all that work is done one the CPU.
We have some in the docs.
Thx, anyone know if the example projects are going to be updated for Unity 2.0?
CEH
YES, MASSIVELY
AC
Id have been rather happy with a yes, but massively attached to it 
… that is Uber… Ive read a few things about the physics engine which brings a few more Q’s, first some examples of what I read.
"Seems to me the only thing you’d have to script is the “lift” effect for hitting a moving object, since this isn’t part of the physics engine.
Really, the physics engine doesn’t do that? So if a car hits a wall or a running train, its trajectory will be the same?
Correct. The physics engine only looks at where objects are every physics frame; it doesn’t take velocity into account. "
Now, I’m not playing with this stuff yet so I’m not 100% sure of the implications of that however I will say that I want to make a physics based game where objects have their own weight/velocity/drag or whatever and can be thrown into one another object or enemy somewhat realistically. It seems to me that I would either need the physics engine to take (velocity) into account say… throwing a rock into a running enemy and producing a realistic result… or be able to code/have coded something up to accomplish that. Could someone out there give me a clue as to the difficulty level of accomplishing such a thing?
Cheers,
CEH
On a side note, I would think the drastically higher # of windows users would have made a windows port (or starting dev in windows from the start) look rather appetizing as far as increasing the Unity user base and cash flows to the company through marketing and advertising to a larger community. So I’m a bit curious as to why the Apple route was chosen and the windows port is still a long way out? :shock:
In that particular example, the physics engine is already going to produce a realistic result. It’s just in a specific situation where doing something like hitting a tennis ball with a racket, the ball would bounce the same whether the racket was in motion or not (as long as the angle is the same, of course). For gameplay purposes you probably don’t want something 100% realistic in this case anyway, but something that “feels” right and is playable. The scripting would be fairly simple.
There are already enough topics on this subject; let’s not get into it yet again. 
–Eric
In the Windows world there’s a huge signal/noise ratio problem. Huge amounts of mediocre software that satisfy 90% of 90% of the market’s desires. E.g. there’s a bazillion game development tools for Windows, some quite good. Unity would be competing with everything from Renderware to 3d GameStudio to XNA. The fact that it’s very innovative wouldn’t get people to switch from their free/cheaper/more-focused-on-what-they’re-doing tool.
By focusing on the Mac they get a non-fragmented platform that’s easy to support, and a bunch of users who appreciate innovative software (and are starved of game dev tools).
This is why Photoshop, Director, Premiere, Illustrator, and pretty much every interesting program ever (including Excel, PowerPoint, and the non-DOS version of Word) started out as Mac applications. (The big exception is 3d apps, which, with the exception of Max, all started as Amiga or UNIX apps.)
Eric, thanks for the clarification on the physics thing, is there a thread on the forums you have in mind thats objective about the windows port thing? Ill do a search later, atm I’m studying for an econ test…
Podperson, well I appreciate innovative software 
I just don’t appreciate Apples business practices so I don’t own any of their products, even though I do like said products. To clarify, I don’t appreciate M$ either, however they aren’t the only distributor of PCs (I build mine) Apple is the only distributor of Mac (which is also a personal computer). Ive turned down free iPods because of my feelings towards apple and iTunes… now I’m actually considering purchasing a stripped down macpro or something and adding my own parts so I can use Unity sooner than later.
I do agree with the signal/noise thing in PCs and its a pain in the ass… Also, I looked at a lot of game dev tools and Unity was the one I was impressed with, same for 3D apps, looked at a lot and chose modo even though it had less features (at the time a year ago) it had and has more promise. Unity is looking like the modo of game dev to me :>
So as far as the macpro goes, when they update to new processors near the end of the year I think… do they raise their prices on the new stuff? I don’t think they sell the old stuff at a discount right? they just phase it out…
Oh, while Im considering this… Ive read about compressing images for game compiling taking a “long time” and was wondering how well Unity 2 will make use of multiple cores… like say if I had an 8 core workstation would it utilize them all for the compression/compiling?
Back to studying!
CEH
If you’re comfortable with buying not 100% new hardware, the refurbished section of the Mac Store is a great way to find deals. I was going to buy my iMac that way, but ended up going new for whatever reason.
Yea, from what I saw of the refurbished stuff, they didn’t really offer enough of a discount for it to be enticing, especially considering my plan to buy a stripped down one and add my own RAM, vid card, and HDDs.
CEH
Well Ill have to put my test in the category of “cake walk” >;]
Can someone answer my question about core utilization?
“Ive read about compressing images for game compiling taking a “long time” and was wondering how well Unity 2 will make use of multiple cores… like say if I had an 8 core workstation would it utilize them all for the compression/compiling?”
CEH
Right now asset pipeline runs on a single core (including texture compression). But we definitely want to run that thing on multiple cores in the future. My guess is that texture compression will be the first thing to get multicore love as it’s way easier to parallelize than for example mesh importing.
But don’t worry, Unity does not recompress textures each time you build a game or something. It only recompresses them when they change. And for fast builds you have the option to turn texture compression off.
a “long-time” is a relative term… i work on a slow g4 and texture compression, even for large projects, hasn’t been an issue. actually, i’d call it a fast compiler in general. an 8 core? i wouldn’t worry about it at all - even if it’s only using one for now.
Thanks for the replies, Im interested in 8 core machines because I also want to do some 3D animations and other 3D visuals, the more cores the better on that front since it improves efficiency :>
Ive been looking around but still pretty lost in the mac world, is there an official date for a product line update?
CEH
Chris,
Glad to see you here! Welcome to the world of Unity3D!
Gary