Ruby TMIX From Sketchup !!!!!!!!

[timberdv]

RC 1966 Chevy C60 Truck - HIGH DETAIL,<kuid2:521966:21077:1>

This Item is 50.45 Mega Bytes on the DLS. It is a Ruby TMIX creation from Sketchup Via Google Whse.

Thia is an example of somebody just uploading content without regard for what it does to the game
but also to the DLS. I took the time to resize all the TGA files and was able to reduce the
size to 11.79 MB That is still a lot for a Truck that will never be seen by most who play
with the game. The overhead slows the computer to a crawl. If you want to contribute content
to the DLS, Please take the time to make it useful. If you don't know how to do this then
learn how to do it. Also Make your own snapshot for it and add a Description that
tells what it is and what its for. Thanks

 

[masonup]

That must be a good truck.

 

[JCitron]

RC 1966 Chevy C60 Truck - HIGH DETAIL,<kuid2:521966:21077:1>

This Item is 50.45 Mega Bytes on the DLS. It is a Ruby TMIX creation from Sketchup Via Google Whse.

Thia is an example of somebody just uploading content without regard for what it does to the game
but also to the DLS. I took the time to resize all the TGA files and was able to reduce the
size to 11.79 MB That is still a lot for a Truck that will never be seen by most who play
with the game. The overhead slows the computer to a crawl. If you want to contribute content
to the DLS, Please take the time to make it useful. If you don't know how to do this then
learn how to do it. Also Make your own snapshot for it and add a Description that
tells what it is and what its for. Thanks

This is the problem of going from a NURBS-based modeler to polygons. NURBS are big sheets of polygon surfaces, and when converted to polygons, the process introduces a ton of faces to the objects as the polygons fill in the in-between spaces through tessellation of the surface. And to add insult to injury, Sketch-up handles texturing differently so we end up with a gazillion little tiny textures instead of larger UV-Mapped ones which end up eating up a ton of resources. Combine the huge mesh, which isn't so much of a problem, with the huge number of textures which have to be loaded and displayed, and we have the stutters.


John

 

[Paulsw2]

As far as I'm concerned "Ruby TMIX From Sketchup" are like words of doom on the DLS. Perhaps it's time that N3V insisted that polygon numbers and texture overheads must be included in an asset's description otherwise upload will not be permitted. It's crazy that you can't upload an asset without a thumbnail, but you can upload one that's 50MB and thousands of polys no questions asked!

Paul

 

[itareus]

....As far as I'm concerned "Ruby TMIX From Sketchup" are like words of doom on the DLS. Perhaps it's time that N3V insisted that polygon numbers and texture overheads must be included in an asset's description otherwise upload will not be permitted...

I agree Paul, this needs to be dealt with somehow and it's really in N3V's best interests to do so. Users new to Trainz may download these assets, see Trainz running at a crawl, think it's the core game, complain and/or give up the game, worse they could tell the world via Facebook etc. that "Trainz is insert insult here" resulting in lost sales for N3V.

When looking at the DLS these days if I see anything that has come from Sketchup it's an immediate no-no for me anyway irrespective of total size in MB. I've checked a few of these assets and even created a some myself in Sketchup as tests. Even in the best cases where the poly count is low (but could be lower) there are many many textures where one would do. I have gone to the lengths of blocking authors who only upload Sketchup items when doing my DLS searches (via CM).

In a way it is a pity that this is the way that things have gone. Like a lot of 'virgin' content creators I saw Sketchup as a way to get into content creation and when Ruby TMIX came along I thought "Great" but soon changed my mind when I realised the impacts. I'm sure ModellerMJ had the best intentions when he created the tool and it's still a very viable tool for simple assets and a good starting point for new content creators. In addition if Sketchup users want to bring massive creations into their own version of Trainz then fine, just don't allow potentially "damaging" assets onto the DLS.

Chris

 

[clam1952]

Hold that thought.......... If you look at the thread on Lod, according to Chris high Poly assets without Lod are likely to be getting blocked, I'm guessing with the next version.

 

[johnwhelan]

He does put the poly count on the DLS and given a fast liquid nitrogen cooled machine it could be used if everything else was carefully selected.

I honestly think the best way is some sort of tag in surveyor that tags no lod items or items where the lowest lod is greater than 5,000 polys.

You never know he might even be working for Railworks or whatever N3V's competitor is.

Oh by the way he has a thread here: http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?98284-Ricomon35-New-Assets-Thread showing his new content creations, including reskins posted without obtaining the original content creator's permission first, just in case anyone would like to comment on his work.

Cheerio John

 

[itareus]

...according to Chris...

Just to clarify, from this I presume you are referring to Chris Bergmann (AKA "Windwalkr") of N3V ?

 

[clam1952]

Just to clarify, from this I presume you are referring to Chris Bergmann (AKA "Windwalkr") of N3V ?[/QUOTE

Yep, there's an interesting ongoing discussion about Lod and its usefulness and there's a lot of good info being given out by Chris. http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?98425-Level-of-Detail-how-useful-is-it

 

[itareus]

Thanks Malc, I did find the thread, there are an awful lot of posts to work through !

Cheers

Chris

 

[Paulsw2]

Looks like a rule on LOD above X,000 polys would sort this Ruby TMIX nonsense out at a stroke....

Paul

 

[wva-usa]

Lack of LOD doesn't brother me much, as I end up disabling many of the reduced LODs simply because they're so poorly designed and implemented that they end up making nice looking models look horrible. While I am a big fan of Surrealism, disappearing parts and round things suddenly turning into square things in Trainz tend to bug me.

As for Ruby TMIX From Sketchup, I just downloaded a tiny little scenery item from the DLS today that weighed in at 116,000 polys with 47 MB worth of texture files. The creator of the item did note the number of polys in the item's description but how many Trainz users actually know what "poly count" means or realize how it can affect system performance?

 

[johnwhelan]

Lack of LOD doesn't brother me much, as I end up disabling many of the reduced LODs simply because they're so poorly designed and implemented that they end up making nice looking models look horrible. While I am a big fan of Surrealism, disappearing parts and round things suddenly turning into square things in Trainz tend to bug me.

As for Ruby TMIX From Sketchup, I just downloaded a tiny little scenery item from the DLS today that weighed in at 116,000 polys with 47 MB worth of texture files. The creator of the item did note the number of polys in the item's description but how many Trainz users actually know what "poly count" means or realize how it can affect system performance?

At least if the lower lods are present you can run them enabled. You acn also adjust the point at which they cut in in the .lm.txt file.

Cheerio John

 

[Pendolino]

So far, the worst poly count I found belongs to a 550,000 poly building (it also has 32 textures, but their impact with such a poly count is minimal)... is this the most poly-intensive asset on the DLS, or has someone found something worse?

 

[RRSignal]

I just found that, Carlo! lol But I think I spotted the record for a size-to-poly count: A drumset that's 16k polys and a trumpet that weighs in at 22.5 thousand polys.

 

[ricomon35]

Having found this thread, I'm not sure what to think. Should I be angry? Maybe. Possibly.

First my thread asking for community discussion on Point Cloud Data rendering as a possibility in our Trainz future gets quashed by Windwalkr without any inquiry
or even waiting until a forum member made a single comment. THAT alone really ticked me off, although he did explain why in a private message.

Here I see a group of N3V folks and Trainzers discussing me and my 1st attempt at adding to the DLS. You guys can't communicate with me for some reason?

NOW, I am seeing Mr Whelan coming within a hairs breadth of committing libel. How in the HELL did you EVER think that I work for Railworks? I'm using my REAL NAME next to my pics !! And as for un-asked for permissions > the licenses for those creators are non-existent in the originals, BUT I have credited the originals to their respective creators in the configs of all those assets. You're assuming alot about me in your statements.

Then Mr Timbers comments? Why didn't you think to contact me directly with your concerns and or criticisms?
I have also clearly stated I am open to such criticism on my new assets thread.
I wasn't aware the tga's were where alot of the file size problems came from, and now that I am I'm not necessarily happy about how I found out either. Constructive criticism would have been welcome, you just come across as an Elitist.

I have just spent $3200.00 USD on a new copy of 3DS Max 2013 which I'm in the process of learning to use, also stated in my new assets thread, which only John has bothered to read. I have been eager to make some quality assets for myself and the Trainz folks, and I know that my sketchup originals and my ports of other creators are high poly But with this kind of slinking around commentary... I may just not !

Conclusion? I'm not angry... I'm friggin Pissed !

Rico

 

[johnwhelan]

Having found this thread, I'm not sure what to think. Should I be angry? Maybe. Possibly.

First my thread asking for community discussion on Point Cloud Data rendering as a possibility in our Trainz future gets quashed by Windwalkr without any inquiry
or even waiting until a forum member made a single comment. THAT alone really ticked me off, although he did explain why in a private message.

Here I see a group of N3V folks and Trainzers discussing me and my 1st attempt at adding to the DLS. You guys can't communicate with me for some reason?

NOW, I am seeing Mr Whelan coming within a hairs breadth of committing libel. How in the HELL did you EVER think that I work for Railworks? I'm using my REAL NAME next to my pics !! And as for un-asked for permissions > the licenses for those creators are non-existent in the originals, BUT I have credited the originals to their respective creators in the configs of all those assets. You're assuming alot about me in your statements.

Then Mr Timbers comments? Why didn't you think to contact me directly with your concerns and or criticisms?
I have also clearly stated I am open to such criticism on my new assets thread.
I wasn't aware the tga's were where alot of the file size problems came from, and now that I am I'm not necessarily happy about how I found out either. Constructive criticism would have been welcome, you just come across as an Elitist.

I have just spent $3200.00 USD on a new copy of 3DS Max 2013 which I'm in the process of learning to use, also stated in my new assets thread, which only John has bothered to read. I have been eager to make some quality assets for myself and the Trainz folks, and I know that my sketchup originals and my ports of other creators are high poly But with this kind of slinking around commentary... I may just not !

Conclusion? I'm not angry... I'm friggin Pissed !

Rico

One of the problems we have at the moment is documentation and guidelines for new content creators. I think the TC3 content creators guide is the last one that had guideline values as far as poly counts go. TS2009 does allow much higher poly counts to be used but there are penalties for going too high. I would consider high for a car on the road ie scenery car to be 500 polys. I am aware that some newer content creators have been turning out ones at 15,000 polys but these I assume sketchup based ones are a magnitude greater than even these.

If you cross two planks in GMAX, Blender, 3DS, or practically any other 3D program you get two 12 poly long cubes? Do it in sketchup and you get a center cube with four arms each of 12 polys ie 60 polys not 24 with any other product. The more complex it is the worse it gets. Curves are always an approximation to keep the polys down there are techniques but you need control. More control than I suspect Sketchup gives you. Sketchup is fine by the way for a simple box house, even then because it normally creates more than one texture file it is not so performance friendly.

You need to understand how Trainz works in order to build reasonable content. If you are building a commercial game then you would be given a poly limit per scene. You would build content to fit within the poly limit.

The issue really is lap tops, and their limitations and they don't handle polys well at all. Put half a dozen of your cars on the roads and Karen's? lap top would die and I suspect she wouldn't really know why.

Texture files are compressed by a factor of four with TS2009 so the size isn't quite so important. If you read the thread you'll see although your content has been used to illustrate a point some one else actually has even higher poly counts than yourself.

I think the issue is that we have some new content creators who are producing content that is way beyond the traditional guidelines. How should this be addressed?

We don't really have good documentation that says if you wish to upload a reskin to the DLS then unless the license specifically gives you permission and some of my assets do then ask permission before uploading.

Working for Railworks? well if you wanted to show that Trainz just wouldn't run on the same machine that Railworks ran smoothly on all you'd have to do is pick the right assets. I'm sure you don't but if I was Railworks it might be a temptation to fill the DLS with poorly performing assets.

Oh and the background to many of the people on this thread is lots of years in informatics and quite a lot of hardware experience so they are fairly sensitive to poly counts.

If you get 3DS sorted out and lod I do have a few items I wouldn't mind seeing in Trainz by the way.

Cheerio John

 

[wva-usa]

One of the problems we have at the moment is documentation and guidelines for new content creators. ...

IMO, two of the biggest blunders an organization can make is assuming that (1) anyone can write documentation and (2) documentation isn't needed (because few if any users will actually ever bother to read the documentation.)

"Pick any two."

 

[timberdv]

Having found this thread, I'm not sure what to think. Should I be angry? Maybe. Possibly.


Then Mr Timbers comments? Why didn't you think to contact me directly with your concerns and or criticisms?
I have also clearly stated I am open to such criticism on my new assets thread.
I wasn't aware the tga's were where alot of the file size problems came from, and now that I am I'm not necessarily happy about how I found out either. Constructive criticism would have been welcome, you just come across as an Elitist.


Conclusion? I'm not angry... I'm friggin Pissed !

Rico

Mr. Rico: Nowhere in my post did I mention your name. There were three items on the DLS, in a row, that were about 50 Mega Bytes each. These were small Scenery items. However I could see because of their size that they were Ruby Tmix From Google Whose. I have a little experience as a content creator and make items that probably have a bigger poly count then they should have. However I have found that you don't need a large TGA file to make them look acceptable. The excessive texture size will slow down most computers. If you want to succeed in Trainz you are going to have to grow some thicker skin. I did not intend to criticize you. It was just a suggestion on how you could improve your contribution. Also intended to inform others of what can happen when you take a shortcut to creation. Now You Know! Timberdv Dave

 

[JCitron]

Again. This all boils down to NURBS versus polygons. Think of NURBS as big sheets of single polygons that can bend easily like a cloth. They are great for round objects because they twist and roll easily like a piece of paper. There are very few polygons inside of these big sheets. In the model railroading world, these would be like sheets of newspaper crumpled and laid over a minimal frame to make hills. Keeping to the same theme on model railroads and plaster hills....Polygon-based models are made like the old window screen hills and mountains. There are hundreds or thousands of little triangles to make up the surface. (the polygons). As we know only a few polygons will create hexagonal or pentagonal round objects as the number of faces is reduced. To make a nice and smooth rounded object, it requires thousands of little faces on this screen mesh to make the surface. This is why some rounded objects have a slight hex-shape to them. This is a compromise between too many polygons and performance.

Now, herein lies the problem. There is nothing wrong with the Sketch-up models as they are. Some of course are better than others, but that's another story. The problem is converting from big surfaces in NURBS and going to the traditional polygons. This will by its very nature create a huge number of polygons because of the way the process constructs the polygon-based model. This process is called tessellation. Remember, we're going from a sheet of paper to a window screen. There are ways around this problem, but probably not with the tool we have at the moment. This would be something for Mike Jenkins (ModelerMJ) to update as this would be internal to his RubyMX script. It would be nice if he did this, along with a slider, to allow us to adjust the number of polies we'll end up with.

====
Like everyone else, I look at it this way. We don't need perfect models. What we need are models that are functional, look nice, and perform well. What we don't need are models that aren't optimized for the purpose, and this is exactly what Sketch-UP models are. They are meant for still scenes rather than one where there is lots of motion with objects being loaded and unloaded on the fly. The very process of loading and unloading takes time, and what we don't need is the overhead of extra polygons being tossed around at the same time. This will only add more to the stutter fight that we have now, and that can only make the that problem worse than it is now for many people with lower-end machines.

John