Combine mesh and export (art setup)

Hi,

This is a burning question I have for quite some time regarding the art pipeline setup. Usually the artist setup the animated model using only 1 mesh and has 1 skin on it. If we wanted to add in more vertices later, they have to reskin the whole model.

I'm just thinking it should be possible to setup the model as multiple mesh, each with their own skin. The exporter can combine them to export them as a final .mesh+skeleton. It should be quite possible, even from max itself using maxscript. Have you seen similar setups?

Yes, it easy to create a maxscript to merge the separate objects in a single mesh that adjusts the vertex weight and the assigned vertex bone count before exporting

Is there any reason why you dont want to simply have all the objects as separated objects (multiple part skeletal animated object)?

This article Working with animated multiple parts characters in the support center contains more details when using characters made of multiple parts

To reduce batch count. Multiple part results in multiple mesh, each mesh is 1 batch. If the character cannot change parts, then it is better to draw it in 1 batch.

The batch count depends on the number of materials, not on the number of meshes

If all parts of you animated character uses the same material (texture atlas) then it will be rendered in the same batch (it wont increase the batch count or will affect the performance)

DrawPrimitive does contribute to performance, although little. When you have a lot of entities, lots meaning in thousands, it does matter.