Some ideas about wheel optimalization

[sethodie]

Hi,

I am busy doing my daily work and has not to much time to work on Puma .

Here is a little post about some ideas about wheel optimalization. My Puma model has 8 big wheels and they has consumed a lot of polygons. So I have decided to optimaze them:

Front of the wheel:



I have separated the cup and joined vertexes of the tyre (changing quads to triangles). Then I have moved cup to the starting position.

back of wheel:



I have made simillar operation, but now I have exchanged 8-sided central part with simple quad, that I have put inside the wheel.

I will UV map this parts of wheel using planar projection, so everything should work fine.


In this way I have started with 204 triangles per wheel and after this optimalization I have ended with 176. It gives 28 spare triangles. Maybe it is not too much but Puma has 8 wheels - it gives 224 spare triangles
This method may give even better results in tank with 12-16 wheels.

Let me know what you think about it.

Cheers,
sethodie

[[TW]DrGuppy]

Whoa... I thought I was the only one who used cones instead of cylinders wherever possible. Good work! If you save 200 polys in one place you can spend them in another which can really help the look of your model.

[Kampfduck]

very smart indeed!

[DingBat]

Nice idea, well thought out.

The only possible problem I could see is that 3d engines might like polies more than triangles. I'm not knowlegible enough to be able to say if that might be an issue or not.

[sethodie]

Originally Posted by DingBat

Nice idea, well thought out.

The only possible problem I could see is that 3d engines might like polies more than triangles. I'm not knowlegible enough to be able to say if that might be an issue or not.

You are not right. Before exporting mesh to 3D engine you have to triangulate it.

[DingBat]

Originally Posted by DrGuppy

Whoa... I thought I was the only one who used cones instead of cylinders wherever possible. Good work! If you save 200 polys in one place you can spend them in another which can really help the look of your model.

What do you mean by this, Gups? Isn't a cylinder just a truncated cone?

[UncleDrax]

Originally Posted by DingBat

What do you mean by this, Gups? Isn't a cylinder just a truncated cone?

On a cone, you pretty much immediately loose 1/2 the triangles over the length (since the sides of cones are usually triangles by nature), and you don't have to deal with 1 of the ends inside of 2.

In doing the KV-2 turret, I noticed that the tripwire cannons aren't cylinder bores, but rather conical ones.. so that was part of the revision I did.
Of course if you aren't doing it for low-poly in-game, then you can use whatever you want ;]

[Chernuk]

I can't make out what the 'back of the wheel' diagram is illustrating. Anyone want to help me out?

[worluk]

left(top and botton) = old
right = new

top = standard
bottom = triangulated

Its to emphsize how many triangles you save imo.

[sethodie]

Originally Posted by worluk

left(top and botton) = old
right = new

top = standard
bottom = triangulated

Its to emphsize how many triangles you save imo.

That's what I wanted to say. Thanks worluk

[FlashPanHunter]

Originally Posted by UncleDrax

On a cone, you pretty much immediately loose 1/2 the triangles over the length (since the sides of cones are usually triangles by nature), and you don't have to deal with 1 of the ends inside of 2.

In doing the KV-2 turret, I noticed that the tripwire cannons aren't cylinder bores, but rather conical ones.. so that was part of the revision I did.
Of course if you aren't doing it for low-poly in-game, then you can use whatever you want ;]

Or what you can do for the bore is have it terminate at a triangle or a square. It's a good blend of the two, helpful if you're cutting down polies in the place where the player can see down the barrel.

[Chernuk]

Gah! I suddenly see it - the nice pie-like arrangement of triangles. Thanks Worluk.