~M.O.B~Warrior wrote:
Now I just have to figure out why half of it doesn't show up . Black maybe ?
I believe I know, but if you can confirm it that would be great. The short answer is that if you try it in software mode it should look fine, but if you expect it to work in hardware mode you'll need to reduce the complexity of the models.
In MTM1 there appears to be a big difference in how trucks are rendered in software and hardware modes. Software mode is able to render trucks perfectly while hardware mode seems to be full of bugs and limitations. I don't know if there is a model complexity limit in software mode but there is definitely one in hardware mode, once a certain number of polygons is reached the remaining ones will not be rendered at all, thus parts of your truck body will be missing or invisible. This culling is done on a per-truck basis, it doesn't relate to the complexity of the overall scene, and tires seem to take priority over the truck body.
Other hardware quirks and bugs include an improper display of faces, such that you can often see bits of faces that are behind nearer faces on truck bodies, like seeing through the top of the truck body and seeing the top edge of a frame far below it. If you speak the language of graphics you might say this disorder is a matter of poor z-buffering. The trick to avoid this is to not have any faces behind other faces that are facing in the same general direction, apparently. Also, if you watch the axles and tires you may notice the axle is rendered entirely behind the tire rather than appearing to merge with the center of the tire. At least this is true with my video card, I have no idea if these effects I describe are universal to all 3D video cards or renderers.
As for how complex a truck can be and still render properly in hardware mode lets try to do some math with the models I was experimenting with. An MTM1 truck has three components: tires (x4), axles (x2) and a body. The default axle has 8 vertices and 4 faces, which can be added to my totals below.
On my first try at converting an MTM2 vehicle I saw only the tires and a small portion of the truck body...
Body: 610 vertices and 744 faces
Tires: 196 vertices and 176 faces (times four)
Total: 1394 vertices and 1448 faces
I then swapped the tires for some stock MTM1 tires, at this point I could see most of the body but many sections were missing...
Body: 610 vertices and 744 faces
Tires: 36 vertices and 34 faces (times four)
Total: 754 vertices and 880 faces
I then removed some extras like engine parts to reduce complexity, at which point the vehicle seemed to display in it's entirety...
Body: 444 vertices and 625 faces
Tires: 36 vertices and 34 faces (times four)
Total:588 vertices and 761 faces
You might like to compare the numbers for yourself but if faces are the important bit then the limit may be somewhere around 800 total, and if vertices are the culprit then the limit may be approximately 600-700. I don't know which values matter or if their proportions to one another matter, I've only done this one test and I'm not sure I wish to take it any further. All of this relates to hardware rendering only. Software mode will render more complex trucks in their entirety without any visual glitches! **
It seems that MTM2 was definitely a sequel worthy of completely replacing the original, this has recently become clear to me on many levels. Still, when it's running well and configured properly MTM1 can be a lot of fun, it's offline drags and tournament system is unique, and the physics and particle effects are amusing in their own way. I've played more MTM1 in the last few days than I ever have before and I've finally come to appreciate it, particularly for playing the original tracks in their native environment.
blah blah
cheers
** Warrior, I also imported your very cool, scratch built <a href=http://mtm2.com/~trucks/truckpic.cgi?thistruck=4882 target=mack>Monster Mack</a>, which weighs in at roughly 4000 vertices and 6500 faces with all of it's parts. It worked fine in software mode but just trying to use it in hardware mode would result in the message 'are you sure you want to end this race?'. Heh!
)
