Ok, this should be the last issue porting 1.0 to 2.0

I have a mesh with 8 parts (I can select them individually), and I want to hide them all and show them 1 after 1.
In EE 1.0 this worked fine, but now the mesh (in code) seems to only have 1 part (which is the entire mesh).

Any ideas?

Hi, for 2.0 that's not yet supported, the parts are automatically merged to improve rendering performance.
I will add option to keep mesh parts separately in the future (because I want to make something better than naming system, perhaps bit masks, they would be faster, but I still need to figure out how to make it the easiest way for both engine and user flexibility).

If the purpose is to animate each part differently (different matrix/rotation) you can just rig the mesh in 3ds max (or other program) and import it with skeleton, then animate each bone differently.

This is an issue that prevents me from using EE 2.0, as I use the hide/show meshpart functionality for armor pieces. It is good to hear that you are thinking about putting an even faster show/hide process into 2.0.

Fex: For armor pieces, 2.0 seems to have a better system in place. I haven't used it myself, but I can see how it's a lot better than using parts.

Anyway, I'm just using the parts (hiding/showing) to build (animated once placed) a turret piece by piece. I'll see if I can use something else in the meantime, thanks Esenthel.

Is it possible to use mesh parts in the World Editor, not only Object Editor ?

For example, if I have a Bucket_of_water item composed of two mesh parts :
- The backet
- A quad for the water

Is it possible to have the object in the world and choose in real time for each instance if I want to display the water or not ?

Possible in 1.0 and/or 2.0 ?

It's not possible in world editor of both versions, you will be able to do that only in game codes once I implement this feature

Wouldn't it be a nice feature to implement ?
Or do you think it is better/more efficient to duplicate the .mesh file and create two versions of the file that can be displayed is all or a fewer number of its parts ?

(02-18-2013 09:35 PM)Tottel Wrote:  Fex: For armor pieces, 2.0 seems to have a better system in place. I haven't used it myself, but I can see how it's a lot better than using parts.

Anyway, I'm just using the parts (hiding/showing) to build (animated once placed) a turret piece by piece. I'll see if I can use something else in the meantime, thanks Esenthel.

Actually I have done it both ways in EE 1.0:

(1)Show/hide meshparts of one giant mesh file with all armors attached, then just hide the armor meshparts that are not being equipped.

or

(2)Separate mesh files for each piece of armor, mounted on the same skeleton (like in the armor tutorial)

So far I have settled on using (1) because my understanding is that it:

A. Results in less Draw calls on the GFX card (meshparts get merged into a single mesh for drawing right? (Esenthel's reply above makes me doubt this...) Whereas (2) will need a draw call for each armor mesh piece (helmet, pants boots etc)).

B. Forces all the mesh textures to be loaded into RAM at startup, so that there is no load lag freeze when a player "pops" on screen that is wearing an armor that has not been displayed before. (I guess this could be achieved in method (2) by creating one instance of every armor mesh to force the data into the mesh/material cache, then just not draw them.)

I should download the demo of EE 2.0 and test the performance, if EE 2.0 has better performance using either (1) or (2) over EE 1.0 its worth it to me to make the leap into the future...

(1) and (2) methods will have similar performance
1.0 and 2.0 engines should have similar performance

Method (1) is currently not available on 2.0 because it automatically merges all mesh parts for you, this will be changed once I make functionality allowing to separate some mesh parts.

I prefer method (2) because it's cleaner

Using less RAM is beneficial, especially for mobile platforms.

Hi Tottel, I've finally added that functionality thanks to new "draw groups"
Please look into version history release notes, and provided tutorial.
Looking forward to see the game you've sent me earlier ported to 2.0

Draw Groups sounds like a very elegant solution. I cant wait to try it.

Thanks as always for the great work Esenthel!

You're most welcome!

Thanks a lot Esenthel, will look into it!