How can I make powerlines?
polycounter lvl 8
I am trying to model a transmission tower and I want to make these powerlines using a transparent texture. Am I going to need a bunch of line segments in the plane for the texture to work because the image is stretching?
I want this model to be used in a game engine so I don't want much polygons on the powerlines.
I usually texture in substance and clip studio and was going to make the powerlines just a black line across the UVs.
I want this model to be used in a game engine so I don't want much polygons on the powerlines.
I usually texture in substance and clip studio and was going to make the powerlines just a black line across the UVs.
Replies
It's generally better to just use pure opaque geometry. Include enough cross-sections to reduce long thin triangles, which can cause performance issues with some GPUs. Besides, the extra edges will give a smoother curvature to the hanging wires.
What engine and what hardware are you targeting with these assets? Mobile for example is going to have very different needs than console than PC.
we generate meshes that lod dynamically and a shader that compensates for aliasing/handles lighting (it's a more general cable-like thing rendering solution) but I'd probably go for something like that if it were just powerlines in the distance
Otherwise use planes with alpha. Make sure to create wires wide enough to compensate for mipmaping or you might end up with textures blurring so much it exceeds the geo, bringing aliasing problem back.
It's also expensive to render (granted there's not going to be much screen coverage in this case)
If the op is happy to fiddle with shaders there are a few options available depending what n the style they're going for