Hitting a Gmax limitation ?

[Brunosk]

Hi Guys,
I am currently modeling for CFS2 my first 4 engine plane, and am having trouble since few days with the export process which constantly fails.I get the following error in the export log, which I do not remember having ever seen before :
C:\gmax\meshes\BSK_Empire_0.asm(65534) : error A2071: initializer magnitude too large for specified size.
As the Gmax file is now 9480 Ko and the asm 13182 Ko, I am wondering whether I am hitting a file size limitation of some sort ?

[michael davies]

Hi Guys,
I am currently modeling for CFS2 my first 4 engine plane, and am having trouble since few days with the export process which constantly fails.I get the following error in the export log, which I do not remember having ever seen before :
C:\gmax\meshes\BSK_Empire_0.asm(65534) : error A2071: initializer magnitude too large for specified size.
As the Gmax file is now 9480 Ko and the asm 13182 Ko, I am wondering whether I am hitting a file size limitation of some sort ?

Yes you are, but, its not the file size limit, its the poly limit your reaching, its around 65,000 polys, but that can be beaten if you model cleverly, there are tricks to get higher poly models through the compiler, certainly for FS9, cant remember for CF2 to be honest. You are also limited to the max number of polys in one part, seem to recall it was 8000, maybe 6000 ?.

Couple of poly busting tricks are, no names with spaces, ie 'my gear part one' should be written my_gear_part_one, a space in the compiler actually equals three characters much like html code makes a space become %20, however a _ is only one character. Part names are critical, one model I debugged had an extra , in one of the part names, very hard to see and took ages to find, keep part names short and simple, again less characters leaves more room in the compiler for polys. The compiler appears to be made of of buckets, a bucket for polys, a bucket for animations, a bucket for textures etc, if you can keep names or animations simple then those buckets have a little more space for polys, doesn't always work but I've found it does help to get an extra large model through the compiler, it might be more technical than that, but thats my understanding from getting models through.Two, make sure all your animations are linear not euler, linear is simpler maths for the animation, ie one speed and one rate of change, euler is exponential and ever changing through out the animation, much more maths involved and thus buried in the code, those two tricks alone should get you to 68-69000 polys. Clever mapping with materials ie keep the number of materials and number of textures as low as possible, also making sure each part is near the max poly limit helps, ie don't have 100 parts with 600 polys, have 10 parts with 6000 polys.

All this is for FS9 but some might apply to CFS2, in the end I managed to get a 4 engined model of 74000 through the compiler, ohh thats another thing, aircraft physical size matters, there is a train of thought that a B747 could never exceed 62000, but a Spitfire could reach the default 65000, certainly in models I built size was a minor factor but using the trick above it was pretty much negated the size issue.

You may also have an errant poly in there which is upsetting the compiler, start by compiling the model with less objects, say it has 35 objects, start with 30 and see what happens, then increase that, you may find 34 is ok and the 35th kills it, if your below your poly limit then somewhere you have a errant part, the only way is to compile and each time leave out one component, if you have 35 parts than thats 35 compiles, but one of them will fail the process and the rest wont, its a pain and can take days, but chances are its one or the parts you worked on recently.

Hope thats of some help.

Kindest

Michael

[Brunosk]

Michael,
thanks for your detailed answer
Indeed, I think I've been a bit too optimistic in my level of detail for such a large airplane, as the poly count is already at 73000+, and I am far from being done designing everything I had in mind... I had never hit this limitation before, although I've never restrained myself regarding the level of detail of my previous projects. But they were smaller aircraft.
Think I'm gonna replace the 4 Pegasus engines by textured discs, this should solve my problem as each is close to 4500 polys !
Again, thanks for your inputs !
Bruno

[Milton Shupe]

Bruno,

Also, a screenshot of the gmax wireframe may get you even more recommendations for improvement. For CFS, it is pretty important to keep polys minimized especially if you plan to fly this in a player game.

[mike_cyul]

I don't know if this will apply here, but another way to get by the poly limits in Gmax is to simply save your model in wireframe format, close gmax, start gmax again, go to the model without changing anything, and export/compile as is, in wireframe (it will be complete when rendered!). I use this all the time, and have gone far beyond what gmax will allow when the model is visible as complete (i.e. filled in, with textures, etc.) in the viewpane.

I forget where I got this trick from originally, but I think it was Lionheart - if so, thanks Bill!

Mike