makemdl Polygon limit

[Guest Gangi]

I am wondering about the maximum number of polygons makemodel will allow? I have been making a VC and it is quite detailed actually, to the point of about 60,000 polygons, maybe 70,000. after testing a few things, I found that the maximum amount that makemodel allows seems to be around 50, 000 polys. If I export anything more than that # of polys, I get an: "error A2071: initializer magnitude too large for specified size" which I assume means "model too big". My question: MUST I have less than 50,000 polys, or is there a way to get around this? Also, is this maximum for the exterior and interior models combined, or can they have 50000 polys each? I remember hearing something about merging .x files or something of the sort. I know it is possible to exceed this max number of polys though because PMDG's B1900, for example, had at least 60,000 polys in the interior, and even more in the exterior I believe. Thanks for any info you can provide! :)Aviel Nahoumhttp://www.blythy.com/adforum/sigs/aviel.jpg

[Guest Erick_Cantu]

If you have more than 30,000...you really need to take a serious look at your model and figure out where you need to get rid of excess.

[Guest Kobie1244]

Then whats PMDG's Excuse? :-lolKobie :-wave

[vscimone 16]

<>And you got your information where???Vin

[Guest Kobie1244]

I just heard it through the grapevine that it was over 50k. The Beech1900 and the 737. Thats just what I heard :).Kobie :-wave

[Guest jringram]

The poly limit is tricky. I've been working on/updating a model of a B-1B Lancer for a while, and it is a tad under 50K without moving nozzles, just under 50K with the moving nozzles, which btw will only compile by exporting the nozzles and exterior seperately, and then copying and pasting the nozzle info into the exteriors x file. Sometimes it compiles, sometimes it doesn't (usually does though).I've got a much updated VC using alot of the new makemdel XML features, and that's a bit over 50K, and it compiles fine. I learned through alot of trail and error that the real bottomline is, and it's really hard to gauge, is that the final compiled .mdl not exceed 3mb. Animation contributes to that big time, as does, I believe, repeated texture maps. I made a T-37 model and had many problems compiling until I went through and made sure I didn't have 1 map mapped to singular parts individually (like ex. Cessna_Top.bmp (wing), Cessna_Top.bmp (fuselage), Cessna_Top.bmp (flap).... should be: Cessna_Top.bmp (flap,fuselage,wing).) Sometimes the individual mapping occured when I merged the model with other parts.But, I have models where the same thing occured and there was no problem. So, I would just suggest trying to shoot for a below 40K exterior, below 40K interior, make sure you have good mapping discipline, and if at all possible, try not to animate every single moving part on a plane. You can get by linking parts sometimes.Jamal

[Guest panzerschiffe]

The iFDG MD-11 (which have 47,000 polys more or less) have mdl files over 4MB in size, so I don't think there is an absolute filesize that a MDL can be.The polygon limits I have understood are 60,000 for each model (exterior and interior)If I make a model over 60,000 it will compile, but not appear in FSNote that this is working in FSDS2, not GMAX (which I haven't been able to get the hang of yet)I think the speed of your computer might have something to do with it. I've heard of people with weak computers having trouble compiling larger models. When they tried compiling on more powerful machines it worked.

[Guest Matthew Murray]

PMDG Beech 1900D has 54,500 Polygons according to ACM!I personally set a 50k limit on models..

[P CLASS=style1] Matthew Murray [/P][P][sPAN CLASS=style1]-|www.precisionmanuals.com|-[bR][/sPAN]

http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg[/P]

[Guest electeddonkee]

Yeah I had heard from a friend who used ACM that one of the PMDG aircraft had in excess of 60k polygons. Maybe he meant the 737 NG. Maybe he made a typo, who knows. Anyhows, I thank you all for the help! :) Looks like I have to simplify the model...rats. lol.

[Guest Paul_H]

Some observations I have made.The exterior and interior are treated as separate entities.I have built numerous models with 100,000 polygons (ie almost 60K exterior and 40K interior)Texturing and animation are the unknown quantities in compiling.Important to try and eliminate what cannot been seen. In a VC if you are making it from the Captain's position then effectively all polygons on the right side of objects within the VC can be deleted.People suggest 60000 is the limit. From binary point of view 2 to the power of 16 is 65536. It seems more logical that the checksum so to speak runs along the lines of a value such as this.Has anyone got a link or willing to explain the process of cutting and pasting x files? Does this allow an increase the size of a project or simply make a large compilation easier by breaking it up smaller modules?http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/72239.jpgMy GOD I am building an Airbus!

[Guest electeddonkee]

Nice airbus! :-beerchug As far as I can tell, cutting/pasting x files has no effect whatsoever. I have been using Middleman and mdlcommander. On export, I tell these programs to export x files prior to the actual export. It exports these x files perfectly, but then still fails on the actual makemodel export. I therefore must assume that the x file has nothing to do with it: and I have also tested the x files using an x file viewer that came in the Microsoft DirectX SDK. Instead I think the problem is rooted in the limits of makemodel/masm, and can't be avoided.This is what I assume, but maybe I missed the entire point of the x file procedure. lol. I myself would also love to hear if somebody has any info on this so called "x file splicing" :)

[Guest sdf]

For the German magazine FlightXPress I made a survey of some models. For some reasons I preferred to count the vertex, not the polys. But perhaps this "vertex report" can be usefull for you.The most compley aircraft of the report is Simtech's Staggerwing with more than 360,000 vertex (or 120,000 polys).Actually I'm working to an improved report that considerate the LODs too.You can see the survey here: http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/73161.gif

[Guest Erick_Cantu]

I just find it funny that PMDG's 737-700 external model has 3 times the number of polygons mine has yet even a few members of PMDG say mine is better. :(Not to sound conceited. I just think 40,000 polygons or so for something that could easily be done in 15,000 and look just as good is hilarious.

[Varmint007 2]

>I just find it funny that PMDG's 737-700 external model has 3>times the number of polygons mine has yet even a few members>of PMDG say mine is better. :(>Not to criticize any particular model/builder, but as a general principle I agree that entirely too many models out there are way over the number of polys that need to be used in order to achieve the exact same result. Way too often I see tessellation used where it's just not needed, and people just don't seem to be willing to spend the time necessary to turn those polys one at a time and USE smooth shading the way it was meant to be used.>Not to sound conceited. I just think 40,000 polygons or so for>something that could easily be done in 15,000 and look just as>good is hilarious.I have not seen your particular model, but when you say a model with 40000 polys can me made just as effectively with 15000, I KNOW where you're coming from, and you're absolutely right, it's absurd. This is particularly true of aircraft with large, normalized surface areas, like transports.I may be a bit biased because my modeling experience comes from a time when 400 polys for a single aircraft was pushing it. Even now, 20,000 polys seems excessive in order to get the job done.I used to build models for military simulators, and later for PC games using ModelGen/Multi-Gen. This software was designed from the ground up as a polygonal modeler for real-time simulations and I miss it dearly. Gmax is a great product, but it was never designed to be efficient in the way some of the other dedicated modelers are. It's a shame one has to struggle with every vertex in order to produce an efficient model with Gmax/3DS, and my guess is most people aren't willing to fight the limitations of the program in that regard. One use of the slice tool, and you've got nothing but cleanup to look forward to...:(In some cases 40, 50 ...100,000 polygons might be something to boast about. Unfortunately in the vast majority of cases, it's a testament to inefficiency and slow framerates.

[n4gix 4,947]

I was pleasantly surprised to see my very first model listed in the above chart. Since the exterior/interior models are identical (remember, this was my 1st model!) I'm not surprised that the numbers are identical.One of the difficulties with smaller a/c is that (a) more polys are needed because of the small, complex curved surfaces and (:( everything in the VC area must be duplicated in both exterior and interior models, since everything can be seen from spot view... This means, that if the modeler has a lot of small parts in the cockpit modeled, these will bloat the exterior model's poly count enormously... :)For my current Citation II SP/2 project though, the cockpit in the exterior model is much easier, since I'm able to omit nearly everything that's modeled in the interior! There's simply no way to see the levers, knobs, and switches from spot view anyway, so why include them? :)Once I'm done with my current project, I plan to totally rebuild the TB20GT using the new techniques I've learned and the tips I've picked up from this forum (and other forums) with the goal of cutting the total poly count in half - at least! :)