IWD2 Polygon Problem (Re: DLTCEP)

[Da Rock]

I am modding an area. The area was taken from BG1 and modified. Simply put, I added a load of trees - which I have in PSD format. For each kind of tree, I also saved copies of the ply file in DLTCEP, so I could quickly create the new wallgroups required.

 

However, I am experiencing a problem during testing...

 

Tree - 425 vertexes.

 

Wall flags (turned on):

Wall (as BG1): crashes with a "Excessive poly vertex count" message.

Adding "Cover Animations" prevents the crash, but also does not dither correctly (only the trunk causes dithering).

Every combination including "Cover Animations" causes the same incorrect dithering and every combination without "Cover Animations" causes a crash.

 

So my question is: "What is the maximum number of vertexes allowable in IWD2 for wall only polygons?".

 

I've narrowed it down to between 224-321 maximum vertexes allowed in IWD2.

 

This question could also be easily translatable to other IE games. I personally think this issue should be discussed for all games, to prevent other area modders making the same mistakes with "complex" polygons. As already stated, these are trees and work in BG1 (I don't want to create n polygons per tree, as this happens to be a forest area!), but not IWD2.

[devSin]

255? Avenger?

[Avenger]

yes, 255 sounds like a good number, but it is definitely not valid for bg2. I think we had bigger polygons in the dragonlance mod.

I wouldn't be surprised if iwd2 restricts it to 255.

If i got some time, i will do some tests, if there is indeed a limit in iwd2, i might even add a checker function into dltcep.

 

Just noticed, as the original poster wrote, that bg1 also allows bigger polygons, so this is definitely an iwd2 limitation (if any). So, probably i will have to add an automatic polygon splitter function as well.

[Da Rock]

Thanks for the estimation. You are correct. I found a polygon with 253 vertexes (another tree!), so added 2, then 3 more.

It crashes at 256+ vertexes for non "Cover Animation" polygons.

[Sir-Kill]

in IE you cant really notice that much detail with walls especially with something like a bg1 tree. it is good that you found out the limit but it would seem to me that you are killing yourself trying to be too exact with walls. I keep it no higher than 60 for a basic rounded bg1 tree.

 

BTW did you just make a donation to community assets? I cant help to think so since the .ply and .psd were in the rar/zip

if so thanks. they should be up shortly

[Da Rock]

Yep, that was me donating a few trees...

 

As for other polygons, I have yet to create one with more than 30 vertexes (I think it was a gate) - I just thought it would be easier to "import" the polygons from BG1, rather than draw my own.

 

I think this issue is useful for any IWD2 modders in the future, who import (and modify) maps from the BG series.

[Sir-Kill]

well their up on CA now. thanks again!