Does you average game engine support 2 sided maps on polys? say if I were to map a single flat plane, would the texture normally only show on one side of that plane or is there a possibility of making it 2 sided?
I'm 80% sure the answer is no to this, but I need you guys to set me straight [;)]
yeah, from my experience playing games I kinda figured that would be the case. I want to do some cloth/flag modelling in the challenge at the moment, but it's not going to look very good if the model rotates and the flag 'disappears'. I want to model it as accurate to an acceptable game model as possible... I guess this would mean if I were to do something like a flag I'd have to make a duplicate and flip the normals on it... doubling the polycount to show both sides?
Most engines support two-sided materials, that is to say, whether it is one or two sided is a property of the material.
The dowside to this is that the triangles share the same lighting and texturing. If a light points at the front of the flag, the back also lights up. If you point a light at the back, it will be dark on both sides.
Doubling up triangles allows accurate lighting. It also allows you to have different texture coordinates on the back of the flag, should you want to.
Long story short, you could use a two-sided max material if you choose, its your call.
J.I. Styles: Interesting, would you possibly still have some z-buffering issues or is this a total fix?
I understand the normals are facing different directions therefore when one is drawn the other probably isn't but I haven't seen it done, I'm all curious now, hmmm.
Do you have any examples? maybe realtime ones that we could check out?
My understanding is that most game engines can be made to 'force double sided' but its does cost in memory and run time speed. Combine this with the fact that most of the time the other side is not visable anyway and its not worth it overall. So usualy the answer is no, you just get more polys to play with instead.
Pantmonger