Real time 3D advice needed

[vizfx]

Where I can find information (or maybe someone can tell me) about how to optimize a 3D scene for a real time presentation? This means number of polygons, texture quantity supported by different PC configurations (video cards). Which number counts: faces or polygons? What is the decisive factor in real time 3D: the number of polygons or the quantity of textures?

Thanks.

[mbr]

What are you using for the presentation? What software?

 

Basically, you want to keep polys as low as possible and textures as small as possible (and keep them at256x256, 512x512, etc.). Delete unnecessary faces, things you won't see, etc. It's a laborious process, to say the least, and the computer you present on will make all the difference.

 

It's really tough and you need very good software (like Eon or Anark - very expensive and tricky to use).

 

Do a search, it's been discussed.

 

Good luck.

[Richard McCarthy]

It's a tough call, and you really need to do some testing to find out. The target polygon count/texture size depends on how good th 3D engine is, and also the computer setup of the target computer. Generally, for online presentation (WWW) you want to aim less than 5000 POLYGONS because of variety of system setup and generally most web3D engines are not that good at driving large polygon sets. (ofcourse there are few that breaks this limit) Another factor to consider is download time, so, lower the data set to download, the faster and less wait for the user.

 

For distributed exe, I think 100,000~20,000 polygons (triangles). It depends on the graphics card (TNT2 = 20,000 poly, GF4 onwards 100,000 + )

 

As for texture size, for the online presentation you want to keep no more than 512 x 512 (256 recommend even), and as few texture as possible due to load time.

 

For standalone exe presentation, I think 2048 is the maximum you can go for. 4096 (supported by some higher end 3D cards) are just unrealistic target in my opinion.

[DennisHolland]

Hi Mihai,

 

I can only tell from the experiences with Wirefusion and the max polycount for a smooth realtimer is 10.000 up to 15.000 polygons, running smoothly on the web. For the other important issue is, as said by Richard, the texture sizes. 512 is the best and perfect would be to optimize them in Photoshop > 100 Kb max.

 

There is a great poly-reductiontool that's called Viz-Up available for free right here:

 

http://www.demicron.com/download/3dreducer/index.html

 

It is fully adjustable, reducing polys up to 50% of the original count. When busy with it, set the preview on 'Wire' and you watch your un-necessary polys just vanish, very cool. Great tool and..since 1 month freeware!

 

Good luck,

Dennis

[vizfx]

For minimum requirements I’m thinking at something like 1Ghz processor, 128Mb RAM, 32Mb Video. I must think at a wide variety of computers because it is a multimedia presentation, most likely I’ll use two presentations, one for slow computers and one for the faster ones. At this moment I’m using Macromedia Director MX but I’m not quite satisfied - is limited to DirectX 7.

Do you have any idea where I can find mp3 codec for video (Adobe Premiere)?

Thanks.

[DennisHolland]

There are lots of them. I use the Radium mp3-codec now and then but it's on the market for over 1.5 yrs, so there must be some more improved tools right now. It's supposed to work with practically all vid-editors...

 

Download the codec: Radium MP3 Codec (Italian mirror)

 

Good luck,

Dennis