Levels of detail - Need your help

[Bios Boy]

Some of you might know that I am working on a new editor to make opts called OptED, well I have come to a bit that I think will affect the design a great deal and I wanted your ideas and input.<P>Say for example's sake you have an Obj model which you wanted to turn into an opt. Possibilities are that the Obj could just contain 1 level of detail and then you import another Obj later that contains another level of detail or the Obj could contain multiple levels of detail to start with.<P>Really I was trying to come up with a good way to assign levels of detail, to existing meshes and/or when importing an Obj.<P>Its all a bit sketchy but I am still thinking about it, has anyone got any ideas good or bad?

[graphicx3000]

Wow! sounds like a gr8 program... umm wat u have is fine... your idea for lod... like say you can have max of 5 lods in your program... i dunno much bout how an opt works<P>but like your program might say<BR>LOD 1- (Browse for Model)- (Distance Activated)<BR>LOD 2- (Browse for Model)- (Distance Activated)<BR>LOD 3- (Browse for Model)- (Distance Activated)<BR>LOD 4- (Browse for Model)- (Distance Activated)<BR>LOD 5- (Browse for Model)- (Distance Activated)<BR>maybe thats wat u wanted to hear?<p>[ 12 July 2002: Message edited by: graphicx3000 ]

[TIMMAY]

This isn't really on the topic of LOD's for your program but its still about your program. Will your program crash whenever you try and import a DXF that has over 1000 faces? or is it untested/not upto that yet ?

[Bios Boy]

My editor is intended to take as much away from the user as possible, along the lines of:<UL TYPE=SQUARE><LI>Import model<LI>Set mesh type, Hull etc<LI>Assign levels of detail<LI>Apply textures if needed<LI>Save opt</UL><P>Thats not a complete list but you should get the idea. You can access advanced options in every area so if you want to set a property yourself you will be able to but most people will use the normal options which are simpler.<P>There will be error trapping code in the large, complicated and error prone areas of my editor so if errors do occur they shouldn't effect the state of the program or your current project.<P>At the moment I have completed code to support Obj files which tend to include more relavent information when it comes to making opts, they can also include texture placement information which I have also supported. I am seriously concidering adding in Dxf support but I will not be able to decide until a lot later if I should do this, I am guessing I will add it in as it wont be too much trouble for me. If I do there wouldn't be a face limit.<P>Back to LODs, I am limiting the number to 3 max until I do tests later to see if more are possible. I was thinking when you import your model I would give you the option to setup the levels of detail then with a custom made screen. If you imported more model parts later you could use the same screen to assign the parts to existing meshes as new levels of detail or make them whole new meshes. Also if you decided to assign a level of detail later from the parts you alreay had I was going to include Assign and Un-Assign buttons.<P>Basically a totally flexable editor.