A quick tip on how to improve the load times for your large custom models
Posted: Sat, 14. Jan 06, 08:22
I have been asked by several people how I managed to reduce the load time for the Asteroid Base from 60+ seconds to around 4 seconds.
Some of the following may be inaccurate...but what the hey...it works for me
First, you need to understand that the poly count of the model, while important, is only part of the problem. The actual "size" of the model when it rendered in game can also have a major impact.
I proved this to myself the hard way with the Asteroid Base, which had way less polygons than the standard X3 shipyard or equipment dock...but took much much longer to load.
So here's a quick tip on how to improve the loading times of your large complex high-polygon models (which I'm sure you are all staying up late creating )
When you are done working with the mesh in 3dMax but before you export it as a .bod file, make sure you use the Slice modifier to break up the model into smaller "parts". It's still just one mesh, but apparently the X3 rendering engine processes each part in the mesh sequentially.
I figured this out when I was struggling to reduce the load times for the Asteroid Base. When I took a good look at the .bod files that Egosoft packaged, I noted that all of them had "parts"...and all of mine were just one big mesh. (I actually first started thinking about this when I began building ships for X2. I noticed that when you exported a big part using the Egosoft-supplied DLL for 3dMax, it would imbed a comment in your bod file with a warning message telling you that you had too many faces in the mesh "part".)
Anyway, once I decided to try and emulate the GFX modelers at Egosoft, it still took me another day to figure out how to chunk up a mesh into parts. However, once I did the load time for the Asteroid base dropped from 60+ seconds to 3 seconds...well worth the blood sweat and tears it took me to figure it out
Some of the following may be inaccurate...but what the hey...it works for me
First, you need to understand that the poly count of the model, while important, is only part of the problem. The actual "size" of the model when it rendered in game can also have a major impact.
I proved this to myself the hard way with the Asteroid Base, which had way less polygons than the standard X3 shipyard or equipment dock...but took much much longer to load.
So here's a quick tip on how to improve the loading times of your large complex high-polygon models (which I'm sure you are all staying up late creating )
When you are done working with the mesh in 3dMax but before you export it as a .bod file, make sure you use the Slice modifier to break up the model into smaller "parts". It's still just one mesh, but apparently the X3 rendering engine processes each part in the mesh sequentially.
I figured this out when I was struggling to reduce the load times for the Asteroid Base. When I took a good look at the .bod files that Egosoft packaged, I noted that all of them had "parts"...and all of mine were just one big mesh. (I actually first started thinking about this when I began building ships for X2. I noticed that when you exported a big part using the Egosoft-supplied DLL for 3dMax, it would imbed a comment in your bod file with a warning message telling you that you had too many faces in the mesh "part".)
Anyway, once I decided to try and emulate the GFX modelers at Egosoft, it still took me another day to figure out how to chunk up a mesh into parts. However, once I did the load time for the Asteroid base dropped from 60+ seconds to 3 seconds...well worth the blood sweat and tears it took me to figure it out