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A Collaborative Forest Fire Fighting Simulation Tool

Part III : Vehicules

 

Vehicules have been designed with one thing in mind : Keep triangle count low

Download a free VRML viewer if needed : Cortona, and if VRML doesn't mean anything for you goto : www.web3d.org, www.geovrml.org

All vehicules have different representations, depending on the user's needs : since both realistic, tactic and strategic displays are in use, and both in 2D and 3D. Add to this that each representation must be LODded, to keep a nice enough framerate, and that a user's vehicule isn't the same than this very vehicule seen from someone else (don't need to represent speed gauge or wheel from the outside, don't need back of the car from the inside ...) ... You'll easyly guess that there is an awfull lot of representations ...

Low resolution representations do not offer any fancy eye candy : ranging from 0 to 10 triangles at most. I'll let you picture yourself a red box without bottom for the most complex low res representation ... ;)

High res models do not either... Here's a common lightweight vehicule sample at the highest realistic level :

 

 

It counts 73 triangles. Note that there's no light, flash or headlights. Flashes are handled externally based on view frustrum, headlights are used only in the user's own vehicule ...

Even less triangles for a fire attack vehicule....although trucks have always headlights on (note, this is a seen from an outside viewed vehicule, so the headlights don't actually 'lit', they're just fakes)

 

Emmanuel designed the vehicules, and, I was cursing him for triangle count ... in order to avoid coming to the hands, I had to let him design a few nicer things, like a Bombardier Canadair CL 415 water bombing plane you'd see in next part (Action) or this Trakker ... far too much triangles and rasters imho ...

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