[X3D-Public] Scene Authoring Hints: meshes

[Joe D Williams]

    * Exporting a model mesh to X3D polygons usually means that the 
shape(s) can only be transformed and scaled, with no internal 
animation modifications at run time. Therefore it is a good idea to 
split up any pieces of geometry that need to be animated separately.

First, I think the lack of runtime access would only apply to 
initializeOnly fields like Sphere, Cone, etc.
H-Anim skin meshes are animated by joint translation/rotation. The 
skin and accessory geometry may also be animated by the Displacer.
If the character needs different density of vertices or texture in 
certain areas it may be more convenient to use different meshes and 
textures than to have a combined mesh and a single texture. The 
performance limit will be the number of polygons along with the 
texturing.
I bet if you can use a single texture for the skin texture, then use a 
single skin mesh. As usual this is CPU and GPU memory limited. In 
H-Anim, the main item will be first skin vertex count, then accessory 
geometry vertex count, and the size of the texture(s).

> Use reference grids and cross-section slices to check that 
> dimensions are accurate when creating new models.

Your authoring tool should defalut to coordinates in meters. If you 
are in doubt, just read the user code. The numbers are in meters by 
default. If your application adds a scale factor then puts the actual 
data in other than meters then there may be a good reason but 
investigate turning that feature off.

Thanks and Best Regards,
Joe