questions.....

[Shoujoboy]

Hey !! I've decided to get serious with reality factory after seeing someone's model running around ingame on youtube. Anyways I want to know should I download truespace 3.2 and just rig and texture my characters in there or should I go with GMAX ? Another question I have is how hard is it to get a character ready for RF in Truespace 3.2? ( I'm wondering because I had a hard time gettting GMAX to work so I may have to move on to truespace)

[anhdung86]

That's all about TrueSpace and TrueGene i read in Ebook: Making 3d games with RF by Dan Valeo:

TrueSpace 3.2 - Although Caligari Truespace is a commercial product, version 3.2 is available as a free download. It can be used to make 3D meshes which can
then be used with Truegene to quickly create RF actors.
Using this combination is fast and efficient means of creating RF actors.
TrueGene - This tool is used to convert Truespace COB files into ACT files. It is available at a number of web pages including the main RF site.

This is the only method that does not require the RF Actor Studio. It entails using Truegene to convert a Truespace COB file into an ACT file. It is as simple as that. It works similar to the RF Actor Studio in the sense that a ‘body file’ must be selected and animation files are then added to it. The COB files are converted to BDY and MOT files and then an actor file is assembled from them. Truespace can also import 3DS files along with their animation data. This makes using
this method, to be a viable means of converting commercially purchased models into ACT files for RF. COB and 3DS files, are two of the most commonly found formats, used for both freeware and commercial game models. Some models will require some ‘post processing’ to be exported properly, so it is important to test the models, before any commercial models that may be converted in this manner are purchased.

[Shoujoboy]

thanks for the info !!! seriously thanks !!! now that I"ve gotten that out of the way are there any high quality examples of what I can do with RF ? because I don't want to jump the gun and think anything is possible....can RF render graphics in the PS2 range of quality ?

[Danimita92]

Hm... a mixture. You can have PS2 quality models, you can hace BUMP MAPPING which is in the Wii, PS3 and Xbox360, but there's no blurs or any post processing effects you can use. The lighting can go from PS1 to PS2, depending on how you use it.

[Jay]

Well it really is a mixture. Apart from the bumpmapping, effects are slightly below the PS2. We have no shaders, whereas the PS2 has a vector unit and some nice zbuffer effects are possible with the PS2 (In Shadow of the Colossus they use zbuffer-effects to make the the light seem to shine into the interriors, they produce a texture which is then layered upon the screen)

[Shoujoboy]

alright and one last question how high can I go with the characters poly count ?

[Danimita92]

Around 7000 is pushing it a little

[Allanon]

alright and one last question how high can I go with the characters poly count ?

There isn't a magic number, it all depends on the number of characters being used in your game. If you only have 1 character then you can go pretty high with the poly count, if you have 50 characters on the screen at one time then you want a low poly count for each character. Computer specs will also determine how many polys can be displayed. You will need to experiment on your target computer to find a good poly count number.

[Jay]

Depends if you use Level of Detail. If you really want push the polycount, then use 2500+ for your main model, 1000+ for your LOD1 model and 500+ for the LOD2 model.

Otherwise, going over 1500-200 polys is not such a wise idea.