more than 1 part node...

[Kadri]

Ah right, thanks, Klas. I've just always assumed that the larger the object filesize, the more resources it would take up when in use...

I thought the same about image file types in the past , like that a little jpg  should take less space in memory then a BMP for example .
But i was wrong . What matters is the dimension of the image and if it is 16 or 32 bit etc.

But in the 3D object aspect it is not so easy i think.
Max objects do store much more then the position of the vertices , polygons etc.
This is maybe the problem why you have to have MAX to use max objects.
The others are different too. Not sure what TGO files do contain .

And file conversion is not always easy and safe as many from us know here .
Matt could have his own reason for not recommending it.
But if you ask me any conversion could bring its problem you do not see at first.
So i would like to use the original file so far i can if i can save it with the project .
Easier and safer if you ask me.

[bobbystahr]

Bobby, I've never ever seen that before. Every single .tgo I've made from an .obj is significantly much smaller than the .obj it came from. So much so that I usually replace objects with TG models to save on memory in heavy scenes. I've never seen a .tgo that was even the same size as the original model, they're always much smaller for me.

Have a look at this then...I've hi lighted one  but they're all similar you'll note....maybe not as big a difference as I said previous
but math ain't my hotsuit .  ..   ...

[bobbystahr]

D'oh.....replied before reading all the follow up posts sigh....good info Klas, gonna do a test with obj vs tgo parameters,  specofically
looking at the.tgd size which is were any difference would show?

[Dune]

Thanks, Martin. Bobby also pointed me to saving tgo's as obj, which I didn't even notice before. I'll figure the rest out, indeed.

[Matt]

Would you mind explaining why that would be better, Matt? I don't always dump my obj's, but often do. I can understand it's better to have them (the obj's) as a backup, but is a tgc 'better' than a tgo?

TGO has the convenience of having everything in a single package, and the file size is smaller than OBJ. However, the TGO only contains the information that Terragen was able to load from the OBJ in the first place. There may be other data in the OBJ that future versions of Terragen might be able to support which you would lose if you deleted your OBJ. Also, if you only keep the TGO, it's much more difficult to get that back into a format that you can use in other packages. You can export, but you have to rebuild all the material assignments and anything else which doesn't export. Being able to export to OBJ is there for completeness, since we already have OBJ saving capability for the purposes of exporting terrain data and so on, but it's not ideal for exporting things with material assignments. Everything that's being brought up in this thread. If your original object was in OBJ format and it loads well into Terragen, and you can save all your modifications as a TGC without destroying the OBJ, why wouldn't you?

Matt

[Matt]

But you can't populate .tgc so.tgo is still necessary for pops

That's a good point but not exactly true. You can create a population from a TGO file much easier than with an object in a clip file, that's true. But you can still populate them. You can create a population of some kind, load the clip file into the populator node and then connect the object to the populator. Or you can save yourself that step by saving a clip file of the population, instead of just the object.

Matt

[Dune]

Thanks, Matt!

[bobbystahr]

Cool....I wasn't aware you could save a population as a clip file

[bobbystahr]

D'oh.....replied before reading all the follow up posts sigh....good info Klas, gonna do a test with obj vs tgo parameters,  specofically
looking at the.tgd size which is were any difference would show?

So it turns out that identical .tgd files with only the objects differing[tgo and obj] have the exact same file size

[Matt]

Cool....I wasn't aware you could save a population as a clip file

Yeah. A clip file really is just a collection of one or more nodes, any nodes. It's very similar to copying and pasting nodes. Just remember that whatever files your nodes reference on your hard disk need to still be there when you load the clip - it only stores the node information.

Matt

[jo]

Hi Bobby,

So it turns out that identical .tgd files with only the objects differing[tgo and obj] have the exact same file size

The reason for that is that the .tgd file doesn't store the object data. It just records the path to the object file on your hard drive.

Technically there might be a slight difference if the OBJ file and TGO file were in different locations or had different names, giving a different length file path, but that's a very minor thing.

Regards,

Jo

[bobbystahr]

Hi Bobby,

So it turns out that identical .tgd files with only the objects differing[tgo and obj] have the exact same file size

The reason for that is that the .tgd file doesn't store the object data. It just records the path to the object file on your hard drive.

Technically there might be a slight difference if the OBJ file and TGO file were in different locations or had different names, giving a different length file path, but that's a very minor thing.

Regards,

Jo

Ah Ha....a light comes on with a dim memory of the efficiency of saving whole scenes by paths not geometry.
Imagine3D does just that but since TGxxx arrived I've not dipped into Imagine but to build to convert for
Terragen....LOL and I guess it slipped what's left of my mind .  .   ...