Max Animation Frames ?!

[mictes]

Hi,

my work is still going on.
Recently I'm creating be-built animations like this:

http://mictes.de/private/crap/glest_stuff/chaos_obelisk.swf

This animation has 50 frames (155kb), and because I have a newer PC I'm now thinking it may be a little to much for older pc's ?!
What is your opinion how much frames an animations should have at maximum ?
Or: What's the max filesize a .g3d model should have ?

[-Archmage-]

I'd recommend staying as low as possible, 40 at max.
Sometimes you can have really high-frame animations, but only rarely.

[mictes]

That was my first thought, too.
But a be-build event is there only one times, it have not to be animated consistent.

edit: whaa, my rusty english *grrr* - I hope you understand what I mean

[silnarm]

That's awesome dude!  I love that rotating 'pseudo' selection circle.

In general you want as few frames as you can get away with, without compromising the quality of course.  While you probably don't want 50 frames for all your anims, if that's what is needed, then that's what is needed :-)

The only performance problem this could cause would be due to the size of the model in memory (and given the typical amount of memory in machines these days, I wouldn't be worried about it), in terms of the calculations done to interpolate the model data, it is the same, regardless of the number of frames in the animation.

[ElimiNator]

WOW! it looks cool.

[Hectate]

You might note that I've had, frequently at first, 200 frame models without issues. Blender defaults to 200 frames (IIRC) and I forgot to change it to 1 when creating a couple of static models (buildings with no animations at all). Certainly if I can run 200 on one model than 50 isn't TOO bad on a few. Right?

[-Archmage-]

That was my first thought, too.
But a be-build event is there only one times, it have not to be animated consistent.

Yes, note that I said 'rarely' meaning not often, or for animations that occur not often.

In general you want as few frames as you can get away with, without compromising the quality of course.

Well said.

WOW! it looks cool.

Yes I agree, it is a very nice animation.
But it would be nice if that's not the only thing you said in your post.

You might note that I've had, frequently at first, 200 frame models without issues. Blender defaults to 200 frames (IIRC) and I forgot to change it to 1 when creating a couple of static models (buildings with no animations at all). Certainly if I can run 200 on one model than 50 isn't TOO bad on a few. Right?

Yes, on a few.
BTW, Blender defaults to 250 not 200.

[John.d.h]

Most animations can be done quite well with about five frames (sometimes fewer), but that one you just showed is pretty awesome, so I think it might be worth using more.  Echoing what everybody else said, if it's just one or two units that have animations like this, it shouldn't be a problem, but if you have all of your units with 30+ frames in each animation, your tech tree is probably going to take a long time to load and is going to take up a lot of space.  These aren't usually very big concerns, but they are worth noting.

[wciow]

Firstly that is a very nice animation 

Secondly I don't think models with large animations are a problem. Too many people cut back their mods because they think that too many polies/frames/textures will slow Glest down.

Take a look at my Dwarf faction, most of the units are 1000-2000 polies per unit with 1024x1024 or more textures. I havent heard anyone saying that this significantly slows down their games despite being at least twice the size of the original magitech factions. 

We should be pushing Glest to see what it can do on modern hardware that is several orders above the minimum required, not worrying about the few people who still own a 10 year old PC.

[Hectate]

...not worrying about the few people who still own a 10 year old PC.

Hey! Why are you pointing me out like that! lol

[-Archmage-]

My CPU lags sometimes, even though I have a very nice graphics card, my CPU is able to play Glest normal speed on maximum resolution, with maximum graphics settings, without lagging, but in GAE I like to zoom out sometimes, and that's when the lag kicks in. Besides, I like to have huge battles!

Again here are the basic graphics limits that I would stay with:
1- 1500 polies max
2- 512-512 textures max(unless you have a very large unit)(also try to only use one texture)
3- 40 frames max(with exception of when you need it/occasional animations)

[mictes]

Thanks Archmage, I think with this I'll stay at the secure side

[-Archmage-]

No problem!

[Loronal]

Uhm Id say 256 by 256 textures and 512 for larger units (bfme 2 even uses 128 by 128 so we can manage 256) For starters and intermediate still go with 512 for average. Models can be very well done with low polies it just takes a certain shading hack in blender that makes everything look really smooth. I think about 800 is a max for workers and basic infantry I have a basic worker 550 polies and at glests default height it looks great. Animation should be done majorly under thirty frames. As arch said there are exceptions but your average animation should take 4 to 11 frames mostly though they use 7. Long animations should even be under thiry and can be set to go really slowly.

[mictes]

can be set to go really slowly

you mean in Game or global (in Blender) ?
If you mean global than please say me how, Blenders UI is **** so if such a function exist I haven't found it yet.

[-Archmage-]

XML

[mictes]

how ?
I didn't mention there is the ability to set the individual frame length.

[-Archmage-]

You can set the anim speed.....

[mictes]

That was not the Topic 

[John.d.h]

(bfme 2 even uses 128 by 128 so we can manage 256)

Yeah, BFME has much bigger armies.  There's a big performance difference between having about 40 units on the screen and having several hundred.  We can get away with being much more demanding.

[-Archmage-]

You know what guys lets just go with these:

Again here are the basic graphics limits that I would stay with:
1- 1500 polies max
2- 512-512 textures max(unless you have a very large unit)(also try to only use one texture)
3- 40 frames max(with exception of when you need it/occasional animations)

[mictes]

I see I initialised a hot-topic
I think the only way to find out is A) Testing B) The C++ geniuses here calculate it

[tucho]

The model animations of the official Glest tech tree have between 8-15 frames depending on the animation, but we made this models 6 years ago, running the game in modern computers I think you can make animations with more frames without problems