[Bf-funboard] Rigid Non-destructive sub-division

[Matt Ebb]

I think a better solution would be to do an adaptive subdivision on the mesh at
the same time as the radiosity (in the render process). By just subdividing the
entire mesh, if you have a floor plane with a small object on it, to get well
defined shadows under your object, you'd need to subdivide the whole plane very
finely = loads and loads of vertices, which = long render times. It would be
good to use some sort of automatic detection, and just subdivide the areas that
need the extra detail. There are plenty of papers on the net about this topic -
many landscape generation programs use this kind of technique to localise detail
only in the areas that need it.

Quoting ilac <ilac@maltanet.net>:
 
> THE PROBLEM:
> The new radiosity system does not currently subdivide the mesh but works with
> the available mesh. This is not a problem with organic meshes which have
> sub-surfaces - but for 'rigid', non organic shapes like buildings, furniture
> etc the user has to sub-divide the mesh manually before rendering. This
> increases polygon count unnessesarily and makes editing harder after.
> 
> So a sub-surface system which leaves the mesh as-is would be great! 
> Especially with Goofsters new loop cut tool, it is possible to easily control
> the density of such a subsurface to specific places, while only increasing
> the face count of the non sub-surf mesh minimally!