Tip-Managing Scene Size

Managing Scene Size

This tip will be an attempt to show an alternative way of achieving a desired result in trueSpace, with the goal being an acceptable level of detail and a low face count. My decision to post this tip was based on a "discovery" I made while creating a scene at work. I ""ed the word discovery, because I was aware of the importance of low poly count, but was never so bluntly shown the concept. The project in question was a model of a large screen, which we were going to construct around the balling pit at our jobsite. The purpose was to contain flying debris when a 12 ton ball was dropped on scrap steel to break it up, and it was to be constructed with a framework from which strips of recycled tire, riveted to a frame, were to be suspended. Enter trueSpace and the happy modeller (me!). I created the outer structure, no problem. Next I built the frame to which the tires strips were to be riveted; again no problem. Then I created each individual strip and two rivets for each one. Still okay. Then I copied and positioned eight copies of this tire strip assembly (as per picture below):

At this point, my computer began to crawl and chatter...So I right clicked the object tool to see what kind of a face count I had and was amazed to see that it had jumped to 31,482 faces!! While I liked the look of the model, this was an unacceptable number, especially for the computer I was using (p2 300 with 64 MB RAM , hey it's a business machine!) Thus I decided to go with a bump map that would look like strips of tire. I quickly drew up a bump map and applied it to cubes which were sized to fit on the existing framework:

Now look at the face count. 444. Needless to say my machine had no trouble keeping up with this and I achieved good results. Not to mention eliminating 31,038 faces from the scene!

I realize this is a pretty basic tip, but wanted to illustrate the importance of watching out for the little things when creating 3d art. We can all get a little copy/paste happy without thinking about the manageability of the scene further down the line.

A Scene Geometry article by Tom Marlin

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Making a bump map

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