Patch Mesh vs. cylinders

(ACROBAT) #1

Can anyone resolve this debate. How does the LOD relate to the number of vertices. I posted this on map-craft and now one really knew

http://www.map-craft.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=2755

" tube made with four 3X3 patch (4X9=36)meshes would be 36 vertices total but only 27 vertices if you count overlapping vertices as only one vertex (instead of three or two, this is where sides meet) between the four patch meshes.

A tube out of the simplest cylinder would be 27 vertices no matter what.

Is there a way to merge patch meshes like there is brushes so I don’t have to remake it all? (I think boddo used to import them into 3d studio max to merge vertices he told me?)

Anyways I have a slide made out of patch meshes, but in retrospect I guess I should have done it in cylinders? Is it worth going back and deleting it or should I bother? Well my map is VERY large and I don’t want something that’s inefficient"

So which is a better use?

(kamikazee) #2

It seems you are seriously messing things up in your original thread.

First of all, let’s start by calling the vertices you edit in GTKRadiant the “control vertices” as they control the way your patch curves. Control vertices are not seen in game and as such wouldn’t matter that much.

LOD is only a problem in-game seeing how it can form gaps. Don’t see what the number of overlapping vertices has got to do with this.

Also, I think you can’t merge patches in GTKRadiant. Maybe you could convert the map to a .ase and than convert the patches to md3. It might be painful though.

(ACROBAT) #3

Well for future reference…is it better to make tubes out of cylinders or patches in terms of LOD?

(obsidian) #4

Patchmeshes have LoD, which means they change vertex complexity depending on player distance. So a cylinder in the distance may only show up as a 4-sided cylinder, moving closer it will change to 8, even closer it may become a 16-sided cylinder. For this reason, you can’t really count vertexes on a patchmesh since they have no fixed value. The control points, as kamikazee pointed out are just there for the mapper to manipulate the patchmeshes shape and is not solely responsible for the number of resulting vertexes.

BobToolz and GtkRadiant 1.5.0 actually has a merge patch button in the toolbar, but it only works in specific situations of merging same size patches to a maximum number of control points. A patch doesn’t have to be 3x3 control points, you can easily create a higher number or add/remove columns and rows of control points from the curve menu.

Edit: If it’s going to be a tube, might as well be a cylinder rather than a flat patch. Not so much for LoD (no real difference) but it may be easier as far as dealing with cracks and texture seams, etc.