Heyas ^^ My little dbp project is really begining to pick up the pace now with the core of the engine basically finished. I can now start thinking about writing an actual map editor for creating proper arenas instead of my hardcoded little test mappy thing and I can also think about modeling varying types of tanks instead of just the one... I opened milkshape and was about to get down to making some nice geomatry for my maps and then had to stop to think.
I dont want my game to be *too* demanding on the lower spec pc's (say, 500's) if I can manage it and I wasnt sure about what sort of polycount to aim for. I know that changes depending on *what* your modeling (like 120 polygons would be a high polygon cube but a low poly tree).. but i really dont have much of a clue. The first thing that came to mind was "Does darkbasicpro only process what can be seen by the camera?" - if so then I can get away with a fair bit more. Ie, if I modeled a full on mansion with like 7000 polys (i have no wish to do this XD) and then made a low poly wall (say, 200) and placed it infront of it, obstructing the camera, would it be like viewing 200 polygons or 7200? Will the mansion slow everything down despite the fact you cant see it? infact, forget the wall for now. Say i had my 7000 poly mansion. Its split up, with rooms, walls, stairs, roof, ect ect. If i was outside of it and looking directly at it so i could only see the front of it, would it be like viewing the whole 7000 poly model, or only what particular polygons of that model are in view?
I ask this so I can try to judge how complex to make my models. I want them to look good... but I dont want to force people to buy a nasa spec pc to play my game
I already thought of low and high definition models packs which the user can select depending on their pc requirment.. but thats a future thought anyway.
Any guidelines anyone would like to suggest for me to keep in mind whilst designing my objects? Currently, my first tank is just under 500 polys (thats pretty low right?), and things like the objects used in flashy effects are around 100 polys.
Incidently, just incase its needed information - its an arcade tank game (get a tank, shoot people with it). Maxium of 16 players so you can have upto 16 tanks on screen at any point + bullets/shells/powerups and terrain. (also, the literal terrain, ie the floor, is simply a flat matrix)
Righty, hope you can set me streight ^^ Thanks in advance!
