Asset Memory Usage

[steamboateng]

I am modeling urban routes from Greater Boston DEM. I want to maintain that dense urban clutter effect and still operate with a decent FPS rate. This requires a carefull selection of assets (buildings, trees, etc.). Has anyone found a way of obtaining an asset's memory usage while in Surveyor?
At this time, the only way I know of requires opening the asset's file in CMP and reading the kb/mb footprint.

 

[johnwhelan]

I am modeling urban routes from Greater Boston DEM. I want to maintain that dense urban clutter effect and still operate with a decent FPS rate. This requires a carefull selection of assets (buildings, trees, etc.). Has anyone found a way of obtaining an asset's memory usage while in Surveyor?
At this time, the only way I know of requires opening the asset's file in CMP and reading the kb/mb footprint.

There are five hits, the first is texture size, the second is poly count the third is is it a copy of something there already, the fourth is the number of items the fifth is the number of textures.

The ideal way is to use buildings that rely on textures rather than polys for detail, second rotate items to reduce the number of different items, third select items that only have one texture file, extra texture files carry a heavy penalty say the equivalent of 200 polys. If you can create a block of buildings that use the same texture file this is good. The size of the building is irrelevant to Trainz other than the texture size so a skyscraper can be as many polys as a small house.

There is a trade off between featurs and performance, adding night lighting etc does impact performance slightly.

Blender created items maybe better as its easier to delete unseen faces in Blender.

In TC3 you can select the item and look at mesh details to get the poly count.

Cheerio John

 

[steamboateng]

Thanks again, John, for your timely response.
I'm aware of most of the performance crunching items you mention, so I've been pretty selective on what asset goes where. Performance limits asset selections for a given scene.
And it's a pia to switch from Surveyor to CMP and open files (then commit them again, etc.) to look up this info. I'm just looking for an eaier way to do it.
Luckily I got that 'show KUID' thingy checked so that frinding files is easier.
I got a decent video card, but it's getting old and tired, so shopping for another. I got 2 gigs DDR too, so I can fit quite a bit onto ground board in Surveyor.......but urban scenes are a challenge.

Regaeds
steamboat