General Development Tidyness

News & General Discussion
1

Hi all,

So i’m working on a game that takes place entirely inside of a tunnel, and inside the tunnel are various pillars and strut-like 3d meshes. I’m blocking out the level in separate 3d software and modelling as I go. The pillars are the all the same mesh, but they lay at different angles and diagonally in places. Depending on the angle they are at, more of the pillar mesh pokes through the outside of the tunnel. This is fine since the player never sees the outside of the tunnel. However, it bothers me knowning that there’s bits of 3d mesh sticking through others, and the OCD side of me wants to model each strut to fit flush…

In my situation would you just use the same mesh and re-angle it, not caring about poking through the tunnel, or would you actually model different pieces to fit flush? I know what I WANT to do (fit flush) but I suspect it’s a waste of time and in-game performance.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts…

Mat

2

I would go for whichever option that yields the fewest number of materials and triangles on screen at the same time. So unless the pillar mesh has a lot of triangles at its base and crown, I think you should reuse the same mesh all over the place. If the pillar does a lot of triangles in the base and crown, then I would make a version of the pillar with those removed, and try to use that version whenever possible. Extra brownie points if you can use the same material and UV maps for both versions.

HTH