Rendering Point
by Nicholas Boelter · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 01/03/2010 (9:18 am) · 17 replies
Ok well i have a huge land area (or as i call it, the "Main Realm" or "Human Realm" (mmorpg). well i put in a lot of tree's today with shape replicator, and it lags alot. so i set fog on and player view down to 150 or 175, and it helps a LITTLE, but not nearly enough for what i plan to do. the tree's are the sticks and twigs so they are all low poly i believe.
so im guessing whats happening is it is still rendering all the other tree's out there, and i have to set my rendering sight down to like 200 (cause player sight is at like 150).
any of that make sense ? :P im a total newb and not sure what the correct word im looking for, is . so what are the ways i can drastically reduce lag and set the rendering range down to that of very close to my player sight so it only renders a little bit past, or the same, as the player sight?
so im guessing whats happening is it is still rendering all the other tree's out there, and i have to set my rendering sight down to like 200 (cause player sight is at like 150).
any of that make sense ? :P im a total newb and not sure what the correct word im looking for, is . so what are the ways i can drastically reduce lag and set the rendering range down to that of very close to my player sight so it only renders a little bit past, or the same, as the player sight?
#2
01/03/2010 (5:50 pm)
LOD's? sorry not sure what that is :P its the sticks and twigs models so not too sure :P 
#3
01/03/2010 (7:52 pm)
Levels of Detail. I don't know if the sticks and twigs have them, so I can't say off the top of my head. But I can say that LODs are very important for framerates.
#4
i cant believe torque doesn't have a "Render Distance : " so you can set how far it actually renders. to me that would be a common sense attribute lol, but i guess that's just me :P
any idea's how i can fix my problem? i zoomed out today after i turned my fog off and distance to max, and saw that im not even covering my entire island with tree's :P so i actually still need to add more :/
not to mention i still need to put different tree's in different locations, plus i still need to add rocks and grass over all the entire terrain.
01/03/2010 (8:52 pm)
how would i go about cutting it way down? im using 1 tree model and then using it on shape replicator, so i cant choose each model individually because its being used with shape rep.i cant believe torque doesn't have a "Render Distance : " so you can set how far it actually renders. to me that would be a common sense attribute lol, but i guess that's just me :P
any idea's how i can fix my problem? i zoomed out today after i turned my fog off and distance to max, and saw that im not even covering my entire island with tree's :P so i actually still need to add more :/
not to mention i still need to put different tree's in different locations, plus i still need to add rocks and grass over all the entire terrain.
#5
They do. It's called LODs...
Which version of T3D are you using, Pro or Binary?
01/03/2010 (11:49 pm)
Quote:i cant believe torque doesn't have a "Render Distance : " so you can set how far it actually renders
They do. It's called LODs...
Which version of T3D are you using, Pro or Binary?
#6
01/04/2010 (4:57 pm)
not really sure lol. is the LOD a part of when you make the model or is it a setting inside torque?
#8
01/05/2010 (3:15 am)
i have no idea how to check what version it is, i got it from my brother. i believe its the demo.
#9
01/05/2010 (5:09 am)
anyways can somebody answer the above question? is LOD part of the model or is it in the torque engine as a setting that you can change?
#10
Since you're already modeling the shapes that need clipping (you don't really "model" the terrain, and the skybox is just.. a box) they figure you can control the clipping at that stage PER OBJECT. That means massive buildings can draw much further than, say, the bushes near them as long as you set it up that way. back in the early N64/PlaystationOne days, raw clipping was used and objects just appeared out the fog. It's disorienting and frustrating for players to navigate anywhere if landmarks can only be seen 100 feet away GLOBALLY.
See how clipping is much more in depth than "stop rendering all objects beyond this distance"?
So, with each model you build (you can easily add them for other models you purchase etc.) you simply give the mesh a Detail Level node (coinciding with a mesh) that has the pixel size you want it to display at. It's all in the DTS/Collada documentation (DTS/DAE [Collada] being the shape file format that Torque most readily takes in.)
You can give models multiple Levels of Detail so that they "gracefully degrade" the further they get from the camera. You can also have a Level of detail with no mesh associated with it, meaning "Don't even draw this object if it is X pixels small."
It's pretty intuitive, but it requires creating your OWN guidlines to be followed for most of the objects in your game. If you or other artists create objects with varying "clip" distances, then the assets will clip out at different distances and will be distracting - Imagine one of the far bushes clips in before the close one, simply because another artist used different Detail sizes. The player will wonder what ELSE is going to clip in unexpectedly.
For your one tree in your shape replicator, you'll have to re-export the shape with a detail marker that has no mesh associated with it.
And yes, you're correct: fogging is not the same as clipping. Fogging still renders shapes outside the fog. This is the reason: Let's say you have a large shape (bulding) and it's mostly outside the fog, but the player is just close enough to see the corner of it in the fog. Now, with your "global Clipping", do you draw the building or not? You need to calculate the clip distance at a given point per object - namely it's center point. The player might be far from the building's center point, but the corner is inches from his face. In a generalized clipping sense, you'd not draw the building, and it would suddenly appear when the player walked toward the building's center.
Torque's fix for this is clipping based on pixel size. If the building is so far that it's only 24 pixels wide/tall, maybe it doesn't even need to draw. If it's 200 pixels wide/tall, maybe it just needs to be a simplified box.
It's controlled per object, and for great purpose. Global clipping will produce wonky results at BEST, and terrible immersion-breaking shape apparitions at worst.
Sorry if this is stuff you already know - I thought I'd give advice from the bottom and work up as you need.
01/08/2010 (5:40 pm)
There isn't a "clipping distance" in the interface I don't think. The principal behind that is that certain objects need a near-infinite draw distance (sky box, terrains etc) while some need to clip at certain distances (doodads, buildings, characters.) LOD is part of each model.Since you're already modeling the shapes that need clipping (you don't really "model" the terrain, and the skybox is just.. a box) they figure you can control the clipping at that stage PER OBJECT. That means massive buildings can draw much further than, say, the bushes near them as long as you set it up that way. back in the early N64/PlaystationOne days, raw clipping was used and objects just appeared out the fog. It's disorienting and frustrating for players to navigate anywhere if landmarks can only be seen 100 feet away GLOBALLY.
See how clipping is much more in depth than "stop rendering all objects beyond this distance"?
So, with each model you build (you can easily add them for other models you purchase etc.) you simply give the mesh a Detail Level node (coinciding with a mesh) that has the pixel size you want it to display at. It's all in the DTS/Collada documentation (DTS/DAE [Collada] being the shape file format that Torque most readily takes in.)
You can give models multiple Levels of Detail so that they "gracefully degrade" the further they get from the camera. You can also have a Level of detail with no mesh associated with it, meaning "Don't even draw this object if it is X pixels small."
It's pretty intuitive, but it requires creating your OWN guidlines to be followed for most of the objects in your game. If you or other artists create objects with varying "clip" distances, then the assets will clip out at different distances and will be distracting - Imagine one of the far bushes clips in before the close one, simply because another artist used different Detail sizes. The player will wonder what ELSE is going to clip in unexpectedly.
For your one tree in your shape replicator, you'll have to re-export the shape with a detail marker that has no mesh associated with it.
And yes, you're correct: fogging is not the same as clipping. Fogging still renders shapes outside the fog. This is the reason: Let's say you have a large shape (bulding) and it's mostly outside the fog, but the player is just close enough to see the corner of it in the fog. Now, with your "global Clipping", do you draw the building or not? You need to calculate the clip distance at a given point per object - namely it's center point. The player might be far from the building's center point, but the corner is inches from his face. In a generalized clipping sense, you'd not draw the building, and it would suddenly appear when the player walked toward the building's center.
Torque's fix for this is clipping based on pixel size. If the building is so far that it's only 24 pixels wide/tall, maybe it doesn't even need to draw. If it's 200 pixels wide/tall, maybe it just needs to be a simplified box.
It's controlled per object, and for great purpose. Global clipping will produce wonky results at BEST, and terrible immersion-breaking shape apparitions at worst.
Sorry if this is stuff you already know - I thought I'd give advice from the bottom and work up as you need.
#11
01/16/2010 (6:52 pm)
tyvm that was quite helpfull :) i dont know modeling so i dont fully understand everything you just said, but i now have a much better idea of how it works and understand the not giving a mesh part and the pixel rendering stuff lol :P 
#12
01/18/2010 (1:23 am)
Not sure which version of Torque you're talking about.. TGE I assume, as T3D doesn't have a demo version w/ editors. Anyway, every version of Torque does have a setting for the far clip plane. I haven't used TGE in long enough that I can't recall where it is, but I know it's on one of the objects in the map itself, not an engine setting. 
#13
As for the far clipping, I think it's a property of the 'sky' object, visibleDistance or something like that - that's how it is in TGE/A at least.
01/18/2010 (1:50 am)
Quote:as T3D doesn't have a demo version w/ editorsThe demo I downloaded did....? Unless there's a newer demo.
As for the far clipping, I think it's a property of the 'sky' object, visibleDistance or something like that - that's how it is in TGE/A at least.
#14
Even if there IS a clipping distance, he will run into the problems I described. Better to use LOD + fog.
01/18/2010 (8:12 pm)
Ah, thanks.Even if there IS a clipping distance, he will run into the problems I described. Better to use LOD + fog.
#15
01/19/2010 (3:21 pm)
I may be wrong about the demo.. I was under the impression that, if we weren't allowed to ship games with the editors intact, GG wouldn't be just sending them out to everyone who downloaded a demo. o_O
#16
01/20/2010 (1:28 pm)
The editor contains all DSO's and no CS's though. It's all protected, Henry.
#17
02/05/2010 (2:24 am)
Sorry to rez this thread, but I guess my confusion here is... if the demo can include the ability to press F11 and bring up the world and terrain editors and all that good stuff, why can't I include these features in my released game so my users can produce custom missions (assuming I also only include DSOs)? This is probably a better question for the people at GG who handle the licensing stuff, but it just seems kind of odd that we can't provide level editing tools but the demo includes everything except editable scripts. 
Torque 3D Owner Ted Southard