Add Detail Mesh at runtime

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Hi all

I have a gun in my project that splurts out empty shells. After tweaking the objects and doint some scripting I could get the performance to a good level even with a high rate of fire, but one thing is still not right. When the empty shells finally lie on the ground, all physic components will be destroyed, but the mesh itself is still a separate object from the ground. Now, I have read in the Performance Pages that as there is a separate draw call for each object, a lot of visible objects could slow down performance, and that is exactly what I can observe after some 1000 of shells being put on the ground.

I know, the sensible thing to do would be to only allow a certain number of this meshes in game, or destroy them after a certain time, but I would like to try something different first:

Is there any possability to transform a gameobject into a terrain detail mesh at runtime, to reduce the number of draw calls and make this former gameobject dissapear in the distance set for detail meshes?

Please point me in the right direction if this question was already asked, I found a answer to how to combine and uncombine objects, but after opening the script couldn't tell if this is what I am looking for.

Thanks in advance

GR

Answer 1

Answer by Mike 3 · Jul 09, 2010 at 12:31 PM

Adding a detail mesh isn't the issue here, but what you want to do with it is

Detail meshes use a texture for the positioning, which is going to give you severe issues if you try to add moving bullets into it - for a start, you'll need to update the texture so much it'll kill your system, and then on top of that, they'll just slide across the floor (you can't set a height for them)

I would honestly look into other ways of doing it - particles, mesh combining or object pools

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Gian-Reto · Jul 09, 2010 at 12:59 PM 0

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Okay, right, I haven't thought about that... would mesh combining come at a reasonable cost to do multiple times in a short span of time? Would the resulting combined object be drawn in one call?

Thanks for the hints

Gian-Reto

Mike 3 · Jul 09, 2010 at 01:54 PM 0

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a combined mesh would be done in 1 draw call - and yes, it's possible (assuming your meshes aren't too large). you may be better off combining small batches of them instead

Gian-Reto · Jul 09, 2010 at 04:33 PM 0

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Okay, now I have a small question concerning the combine mesh.

I have now the following script:

Gian-Reto · Jul 09, 2010 at 04:34 PM 0

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if (Time.time >= nextCombine) { // combine the terrain with the debris lieing around

     var meshFilters = GetComponentsInChildren(MeshFilter);
     var combine : CombineInstance[] = new CombineInstance[meshFilters.Length];
     var index = 0;

     for (var i = 0; i < meshFilters.Length; i++) {
         if (meshFilters[i].sharedMesh == null) continue;

Gian-Reto · Jul 09, 2010 at 04:34 PM 0

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combine[index].mesh = meshFilters[i].sharedMesh; combine[index++].transform = meshFilters[i].transform.localToWorldMatrix; meshFilters[i].renderer.enabled = false; // index++; } GetComponent(MeshFilter).mesh = new Mesh(); GetComponent(MeshFilter).mesh.CombineMeshes (combine, 0, 1); renderer.material = meshFilters[1].renderer.sharedMaterial;

     nextCombine = nextCombine + garbageCombineInterval;
 }

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Add Detail Mesh at runtime

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