Kinner Sportster model

[chad3006]

OK, I've started work on a Kinner Sportster (circa 1935.) I've got a question about the level of detail and poly count. For Speed Dreams, this model would already be on track to have too high a poly count, but I notice most FG planes are comparatively high poly. As it sits right now, this model is at over 14,000 triangles, most of that is because of the cooling fins on the rotary engine. Should I fake the cooling fins with texturing or maybe compromise and just fake the fins that aren't seen from the pilot's seat maybe? Or is it fine as is?

[Catalanoic]

Keep the two versions would be great! a low-poly and high-poly version, if isn't a lot of work for you.

[chad3006]

Does FlightGear use LOD's (levels of detail)?

[PINTO]

For scenery, yes. For aircraft, no.

[wlbragg]

We have come to a point with the shuttle that we are implementing a crude LOD system for the mesh. From what we understand it is doable. You may want to keep that in mind as your project progresses and plan accordingly.

EDIT: This is a developer instantiated LOD not FlightGear per se.

[chad3006]

I managed to get it down to 15146 triangles with some wings and everything and keep the cooling fins too.

[chad3006]

Here it is at a little over 18k triangles:

[chad3006]

Some texture work done:

[Catalanoic]

Awesome project and advanced 3d modelling skills!

[Thorsten]

For the record, 14.000 this is a completely unproblematic number. In this region, it matters far more how your model is organized, i.e. you should have as few distinct objects as possible and if feasible have all textures organized on one sheet (this will minimize draw calls - during a draw call, the GPU can process tens to hundreds of thousands of vertices without a strong performance impact, but starting a new draw call always costs performance.

100.000 to a million start making trouble (dependent on the GPU)

For comparison, I think I once counted that trees gave me a good six million vertices in the scene - but they're organized in very few draws.

[chad3006]

So far the, the model itself is one object (but with several internal groups), and the texture is one 2048x2048 texture.

[Bomber]

looking good.....if you have a 3 view drawing you're using could you forward it to me as its best that I use the same one for flight modelling..

regards

Simon

[chad3006]

Hey guess what? I lost it. Yep I had a computer goof and must have accidentally deleted it when I was transferring it over to a new computer. I have an older less detailed version saved, so I guess I won't have to start completely from scratch.

[Johan G]

Ouch!

[psadro_gm]

develop on a git hosting service : github, gitlab, sourceforge...

I will even get a little dev time in at work - your repo is available from anywhere....