Model quality guidance required!

Questions & Answers
1

Hi,

I realise this question will not have a definitve answer, but any suggestions would be great! :slight_smile:

I have constructed a low poly model (about 400 tris) tank in Blender, which I have exported to Unity 3.3
I am not sure which is the recommended format, but I use Collanda; using FMX means I have to scale the models up massively and this seems to cause artifacting…
The model appears in the middle distance, and moves left to right along the screen. The scene is viewed with a static camera. The models are viewed pretty much ‘side-on’ but the camera is set slightly higher so that some of the top of the model is also visible.

My problem is, as the tank moves the change in perspective cause ugly lines (aliasing?). To describe it, the model starts on the left and you can see the side and a little of the front of the model. As the model exits the screen on the right, part of the rear of the tank is visble instead of the front. This obviously occurs because of the perspective view, but this causes the pixels in the lines which comprise the tank to move in a very obvious fashion.

I have never seen this level of aliasing in any other game before, so I must be doing something wrong!

Enabling multisampling negates it a bit, but as the target platform is the iPad, I don’t really want to do this if it’s not definitely required.

Basically, I am after any modelling tips to get a decent model in game; should I be using fewer polys; or more polys?

Any guidence would be most appreciated!

–Mike–

2

The scaling issue might be causing problems with your mesh but probably not the anti-aliasing - in anycase check:

  • Do you mean FBX? this is the most reliable format for Unity (2011.3)
  • Units settings and the actual scale of your object in Blender.
  • The import settings in the inspector for the fbx object (you can set the scale here)

It also sounds like you have some camera clipping issues when seeing the wrong part of the tank, adjust the clipping planes of the camera (inspector) or move it further back and zoom in the field of view to get back to the view you need.

There are a couple of general Art/games dev tips you could make use of to help alleviate vertical and horizontal aliasing:

  • Create a subtle bevel along the majoredges of your model if you can afford the polys
  • Edit the smoothing groups of your faces to help blend round significant corners
  • Move your main light source less face on to the model
  • Create less of a contrast between your backdrop and your model
  • Create a second ‘kicker’ light source (light an subtle blue ambient for example) with an opposing direction from the main light
  • Offsetting or moving your camera to avoid direct side on views will help reduce the appearance of aliasing