How to Fix Triangle Strips?

#1 What program did you use to create and export the dts? (_always_ give that information when asking this type of question)

#2 Well, I exported to OBJ from Maya, and then opened and saved in MilkShape 3D, and then finally exported to DTS using an exporter I found here.

Perhaps there is a function that will check the triangles and fix it automatically...

#3 I believe theres an exporter for Maya.

#4 Yes, I've used that exporter before... but I have to download and install it, so I will do that... and I believe that will correct it.

I just used the Milkshape one because, generally, its faster to work with than Maya.

Okay, thanks all! :)

#5 Greetings!

The creation of triangle strips occurs at the time of export, and unfortunately not all DTS exporters support triangle stripping.

Torque ShowTool Pro doesn't actually modify your DTS model so it can't make your model use triangle strips after you've exported. However, if you use the Maya exporter, I believe that it will do what you want.

- LightWave Dave

#6 The Maya exporter does support triangle stipping. Latest version linked from Torque Artist Page

#7 The regular Milkshape exporter does not support triangle stripping, if you want to use milkshape and need triangle stripping support use the milkshape exporter that was written using the dtsSDK+

#8 Okay, great. Thanks for links. :)

Is this a big performance increase I wonder? I mean having the triangle strips all neatly laid out... or is it to compress the file size?

#9 I did some tests while working on the gameSpace DTS exporter. I had 9 orcs in a cluster with no tri-stripping and 9 orcs in a cluster with tri-stripping. When the non-triStripped orcs were on screen the frame rate dropped down to 1-5 fps. When the tri-stripped ones were on screen it was still getting 35-50 fps.

Just for reference the test orcs had only one detail level, that being the highest one. (around 3,000 triangles) and were being drawn on an open section of the terrain in the TGE demo 1.2.

seemed like a performance increase to me :o)

#10 I see... interesting results.

Thanks for info.

#11 @Matt - The real difference is that dtsSDK+ uses nVidia's tristripper code which optimizes for the GPU vertex cache. The rendering performance for tristrips vs. triangle lists when they are both properly vcache optimized is near the same.

#12 With the usual caveat, on current hardware.

The older a card you can dredge up, the more difference you'll see between lists and strips.

#13 @Mark - Right. Also when you game is vertex bound which doesn't happen too often.