Talk:Models vs brushes
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Question
I'm no expert on this, but aren't reused models easier on the hardware since they are only instances?
--Legshot 17:24, 14 December 2005 (W. Europe Standard Time)
No idea.
You're welcome to benchmark it and post the results! --iceheart 17:43, 14 December 2005 (W. Europe Standard Time)
Scaling
It's also worth noting that you can not resize static meshes in the engine's editor: a model of a door for example, can't be resized to fit a doorframe (had you misjudged the sizing) so you'd need to either resize the model in your 3D application or change the surrounding brushwork to fit.
That's not exactly true. Actually, that's not true at all. When you rotate a func_static, save, close, and re-open your map, you'll notice this func_static has acquired a "rotation" key. This rotation key has several required variables and they control the stretching and skew for every dimension of the model. While it isn't intuitive, at all, it can be manipulated to resize a model, or do much much more than that.
I'd correct the article, but I can't describe the rotation parameters well enough. I barely understand them myself, knowing just enough to coax D3 into giving me what I want.
I haven't found it mentioned in the def files either, but it certainly works, and consistently at that. --onu 22:35, 4 February 2007 (CET)
Yes
This has been known for a while, however, it has some limitations and what you usually get is visible seams either in the visual model or shadow volumed extruded from the scaled shadow hull. http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=9265&highlight=scaling+rotate--Mordenkainen 07:09, 5 February 2007 (CET)
Theory
I get the impression that the values stored in the rotation key/value pair are a series of vectors. Perhaps the reason things are buggy is because each of these vectors has to be normalized.
For instance, to make something twice it's normal size you could do something like this...
2 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 2
But when that's normalized it still equates to...
1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
At any rate, it's a hack and I'd prefer that if we did document these sort of tricks that we emphasize that they are problematic.
For instance, in this case the preferred method would be to resize the model in a third party application. To tweak the rotation key/value pair is a semi-functional work around but it introduces a whole new set of problems to overcome.
--Rich 01:15, 13 February 2007 (CET)
What about organic models like plants and such. If you scaled and rotated within the game, thereby using only instances of a single model, would it be better in terms of resources? Hemebond
