once you export something into a game engine it becomes all tris. Quads are only a convenience for editing a model. So don't be afraid to just use tris when you need to.
One concern I have with tris is the winding order ( even if it's all tris in the engine how important is winding order to engine efficiency? ) Am I likely to break a feature or affect performance choosing right over left? Is there a general preference to have a model be compatable with most pipelines ( uv winding issues? skinning issues? tri strip breaking? )
Has anyone ever been mandated one way over the other? Or is it just expected that artist are not tech savvy enough to know how to change the winding order? ( a simple mesh attribute in Maya )
One concern I have with tris is the winding order ( even if it's all tris in the engine how important is winding order to engine efficiency? ) Am I likely to break a feature or affect performance choosing right over left? Is there a general preference to have a model be compatable with most pipelines ( uv winding issues? skinning issues? tri strip breaking? )
Has anyone ever been mandated one way over the other? Or is it just expected that artist are not tech savvy enough to know how to change the winding order? ( a simple mesh attribute in Maya )
Well that depends on how the game engine interprets a model. Pre-set winding order and tri stripping could be thrown out by the import/export process altogether.
In practical terms I know that when models were very low polygon tri-strips and so on were very important. Since you could make a huge difference to the number of strips with a small change. Renderware, for example, had a tri-strip view mode to debug this.
However for current console platforms the performance impact of tri-strips isn't as important. They still exist but your control over them isn't likely to cause a large problem.
It's still a good idea to avoid having uneven polygon distribution, triangle fans, or long and thin polygons. Mostly because these tend to deform poorly or cause visual issues.
Even without tri-strip as a concern...
Does anyone know of ANY considerations when it comes to winding order and final path to the engine?
Are you allowed to use any winding order you please?
I am trying to convince my friend to release some awesome tools but he is hesitant because he is concerned that it might introduce topology concerns to pipelines unknowingly. Personally, I do not see where it makes a difference if winding order is broken as long as normal direction remains correct?
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Has anyone ever been mandated one way over the other? Or is it just expected that artist are not tech savvy enough to know how to change the winding order? ( a simple mesh attribute in Maya )
Well that depends on how the game engine interprets a model. Pre-set winding order and tri stripping could be thrown out by the import/export process altogether.
In practical terms I know that when models were very low polygon tri-strips and so on were very important. Since you could make a huge difference to the number of strips with a small change. Renderware, for example, had a tri-strip view mode to debug this.
However for current console platforms the performance impact of tri-strips isn't as important. They still exist but your control over them isn't likely to cause a large problem.
It's still a good idea to avoid having uneven polygon distribution, triangle fans, or long and thin polygons. Mostly because these tend to deform poorly or cause visual issues.
Does anyone know of ANY considerations when it comes to winding order and final path to the engine?
Are you allowed to use any winding order you please?
I am trying to convince my friend to release some awesome tools but he is hesitant because he is concerned that it might introduce topology concerns to pipelines unknowingly. Personally, I do not see where it makes a difference if winding order is broken as long as normal direction remains correct?