TM-FORUM

I was just thinking a little.. Well, not everyone has 50MBiT/s connection! So, how do the devs imagine the file size of the custom block? Well I think it should be small... very small! I mean I've seen tracks in 120-300Kb, and that was long loading time. Not to mention my 360-replay 15MB tracks Now imagine big custom blocks! So eh, what about 20Kb? I think that most of people will use some "popular collection" of custom blocks. But if you put in some so called "HD" 16MB customs I'd be not happy!

So now to the idea... Not just how big it is, how to make it small?

I mean some geometry + TM can pre-tessalate it + pre-defined objects(like ceiling or I dunno now... grass? terrain? eh..) = pretty small geometry

Bbbut: 4-6 pairs of textures? Plus specular maps, bump maps... Random maps

Well that's some sorta big... Don't you think? Well, maybe pre-installed textures? Oh come on! That's boring. Therefore we have one technique:
Pick up one small texture(64x64) + put on "difference map". You basically repeat the same texture, and then put on the same texture on it. That's kinda useless on so called "colo(u)r maps". That's basically the thing you see.

But, in a game called fuel the devs used it on bump and elevation maps. And achieved 14,400 km² game world. That's kinda awsome, right?

So these are my thoughts about the custom block size.

Im no 3D expert but i would be sure that blocks would have to have a Polly limit as with the way we make cars... you know your self that with the limitations, the car file sizes are very small thus easy for P2P
I would only hope that the block are embedded into the track rather than P2P'd...... "the only way i can see it working" but anyway setting the polly limit should not limit type shape and structure size of the block so that is a good thing

Polies are not a filesize problem. They're problem called "100 cars without limited poly-count on one track rendered at once".

Yes that means the polys don't 'weight' a lot. The biggest problem are the textures

Vertex points don't take a lot of data to store. It should be fine for most people with a 1Mbit connection or better.

A previous post of mine:

Kakkoii wrote: It depends on how they store the model information. If it's in polygonal form, then yeah it could end up taking a lot of space, but that's also what your cache folder is for, so you don't need to download it every time. A one time download of a large track isn't that bad as a trade off for the immense customization made possible.

If they make the block editing using NURBS, then it would allow for a very small file size. Then when the track is loaded the NURBS are converted to polygons which are then crunched by your GPU

Although, polygons still wouldn't be too bad as long as people weren't trying to make super smooth objects.
An OBJ file with 4 objects totaling 1600 polygons is still only 220KB. And the same, but with 100270 polygons is only 15MB. That's way more than most people would need to use in their tracks, even with an entirely custom blocks track.

Of course you'd still have people who would go all out and make insanely massive and complicated tracks that have a massive poly count. But that's what freedom is about.

I'm probably getting a new PC sometime so, it doesn't matter what size it is but...

...hopefully it will be the file size will be small as one track