poly count

Actually, yes. andnbsp;I thought that MSTS required a certain naming of the Hierarchy. andnbsp;Certain names were acceptable; like Wheels1, Rods 1, Rods2. andnbsp;Everything else had to be an object under the MAIN group. Like this:

There is a certain margin – I don’t know exactly what’s the cause – when models built with 3dc don’t load into MSTS any more. My solution for the problem is in most cases to merge some objects (so maybe it’s the object count). On the other hand Richard is against merging if not absolutely necessary (I never understood exactly why..) so is there another solution or do I something profoundly wrong?

That’s strange. I had it three or four times until now that MSTS refused to load and merging some objects seemed to help. andnbsp;Then there must be another solution for this riddle and I have to look elsewhere.
Btw Is there a max number of polys for models? Or does MSTS load almost every poly-count and only runs slower frame-rates?

I’m not the one to ask on this. There are known to be limitations on the number of faces and points but what those numbers are I don’t know. Other threads here, and at Train-Sim.Com and UKTrainSim discuss this issue.

Richard

It shouldn’t make any difference whether you merge objects or not. From the perspective of the exporter two objects in the same group are in effect merged.

Richard

I new at all this – but I have had this problem a number of times, I don’t now much about poly counts, but I have notice that when the *.s files size get above around 1100kb TS wont display it, or refuses to load it. The answer of combining was my first answer, but found it did’nt achieve much.

However I have andnbsp;discovered, that compressing the *.s before attempting to use it in TS. regardless of the original size, works fine !

So I suggest using FFEDIT every time !!

Not quite Ian – 3DC automatically combines all objects in a group when it outputs the S file so the number of individual objects in a group is immaterial.

The number of points/polys in a group is probably limited to around 10000 but the number of groups is not limited.

Like you said, more groups lead to lower performance, around 8-15 groups seems OK, 20-40 seems to lose a few fps.

It’s all a balancing act <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>

Regards

Paul

There is some sort of balancing act with MSTS. If you merge too many objects to make a very complex object, MSTS falls over, if you have too many separate objects in a single group, MSTS falls over. Having too many groups is supposed to be bad for performance, but if you get the right number of objects of the right complexity you can get models of several thousand polys into MSTS. Sorry I can’t give numbers, its all a matter of trial and error, I believe.

Note that if you have any animation in your model, you will need a modified version of newshape.bnf in order for FFEDITC to compress the model. I’m not sure where this can be downloaded, but if you want it, email me (it’s only 17kb)

I have had objects that wouldn’t load as normal objects (caused the evil andquot;Failed to load objectandquot; screen) in my [b:2w7dgr4f]Main[/b:2w7dgr4f] group, but I added a group called [b:2w7dgr4f]Wheels5[/b:2w7dgr4f] and placed them in there, and viola!

It ain’t pretty, but it works as a last resort. I imagine that whatever problem existed before still exists, so it may not be the best solution, but it does work. Anyone care to explain why this might work?

Hmmm, maybe I don’t understand.

Did you name it wheels5 because you thought MSTS only accepted specific names for it to work?

I built this when I didn’t know what I was doing… (first model) and it loads fine. andnbsp;Proof that you can use whatever names you want under MAIN.
matrix MAIN ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -1.167297E-03 0.9141322 -6.328106 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix HATCH ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -1.044273E-02 3.723558 -1.084805E-02 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix VENT ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -1.51062E-03 3.835242 1.49931 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -7.93457E-04 0.9135268 6.340389 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix BOGIE2 ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -0.01334 6.723277E-03 -5.877459 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 3.020954E-02 4.040407 0.2025609 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix WHEELS22 ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 4.399776E-03 0.4365 -0.7839903 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix WHEELS21 ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 4.399776E-03 0.4365 0.8994336 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix BRAKES ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 3.207394 0.8444274 -6.097968 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -1.972724 0.4260904 -0.679859 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -3.432977 6.502932E-02 2.846082 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -3.299766 7.048273E-02 2.002769 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -4.151664 0.9779187 -0.7194217 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -4.147782 0.9655167 -0.7880875 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -4.396549 0.3264109 -0.342878 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix HANDRAILS ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 3.89582 0.8444274 -6.719734 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -4.588271 3.134917 5.491703 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -3.279518 3.124565 8.048432 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.935812 3.129288 -0.2081999 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.934838 3.126075 6.991853 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -3.265027 2.835704 0.2085919 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -3.265001 2.8357 1.81252 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -3.035801 3.162284 3.916788 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -3.03435 3.163037 5.533257 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -3.036523 3.162121 7.91419 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -3.03505 3.162982 9.586357 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -3.035379 3.162027 11.45597 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -3.033911 3.163504 13.08458 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -4.48765 3.056466 0.1000142 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -4.482649 3.061543 13.31756 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix ENDPLATFORM ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 2.937277 0.8444273 -6.696266 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.941628 0.2511593 -0.4453999 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.946986 0.2542965 0.2608706 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.940402 0.8770868 -0.3146392 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.940852 0.2881669 0.8870392 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.94344 2.241158E-02 -0.4455093 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.939259 0.2757001 12.50805 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.939412 0.2476243 13.13132 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.940798 0.2535467 13.8428 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.938547 2.379298E-02 13.83928 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.943518 0.8775246 13.71564 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -3.75296 0.8913449 -0.3151118 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -3.730197 0.8916796 13.71477 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix LOADING ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 2.230725 0.8444274 -5.667613 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.088171 2.884901 -7.740545E-02 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.470835 3.042918 -9.375572E-03 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.272507 2.8838 12.2545 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.083832 2.889915 11.4581 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -1.809123 2.709618 -1.022951 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.763013 2.820124 6.256142 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.76119 2.819426 5.433414 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -1.693717 3.035876 11.37792 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix WALKWAY ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 2.82607 0.8444274 -6.813146 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.140249 0.9137315 13.87653 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.138201 0.9125608 -0.237007 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.139243 2.885763 6.802755 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -3.381555 2.877851 6.810649 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix PIPE1 ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 2.831224 0.8444275 -4.789052 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP.1 ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.813203 3.203556 10.57515 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix BOGIE1 ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -5.819798E-03 7.233491E-03 5.739284 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix WHEELS11 ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 4.399776E-03 0.4365 0.9241247 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix WHEELS12 ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 4.399776E-03 0.4365 -0.7650757 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix COUPLER ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 2.365705 0.5165924 8.396151 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.372834 0.3941372 -16.06358 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.377946 0.3932855 -15.8163 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.368985 0.3853953 -0.9639931 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.363809 0.3921613 -0.7173195 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix PLACARD ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 2.680438 0.5165923 -5.083437 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -2.42075 0.8260132 -1.902344 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -3.091362 0.7440214 11.95081 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -1.249947 0.8643965 10.89515 )
andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp; andnbsp;matrix GROUP ( 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 -4.109865 0.8851331 -0.7260916 )

@nwfan:

That’s definitely not true: you can have many more groups and name them as you like. (Unfortunately the MSTSWizard renames them to andquot;groupandquot; anyway.) Nobody seems to know how many groups one can have in the hierarchy. As I understand the LODs are the results of clever use of this group-hierachy. If all objects are part of the main group then no LODs are possible.

So you are saying ANY named Group under MAIN is OK, but just the ones MSTS recognizes can be animated (Wheels1,Wheels2,Rods1…)?

This is a good example why I need to read this forum more often.