Do object bounds even matter?

[nognow]

Do object bounds even matter?
I've noticed that the same meshes in different mods (Like Millenia's individual releases vs the same weapons in WotNM) often have different object bounds in GECK.
Also, since many weapon mods add silencers, extended mags/barrels, etc., the mesh parameters are bound to change.
And when importing the nifs into Blender, the Convex Poly (same thing?) generally clips as well.

[madmongo]

You need the collision mesh to cover enough of the weapon so that when the weapon drops (either from you dropping it or an enemy dropping it or whatever) that the weapon lands somewhat realistically on the ground. Using a simple box will often do the trick though.

 

If for example the collision mesh doesn't cover the silencer, then if the weapon drops then theoretically the silencer could end up clipping through another object, which would look a little odd. Most of the time though, when a weapon drops it's just going to land on flat ground and won't be so close to something else that the collision will really matter all that much.

 

So yeah, once in a while you might notice something a bit odd, but most of the time it really isn't going to matter much.

 

In addition to the collision mesh you also have the object bounds, which you can think of as a big box that surrounds the weapon or object. Basically, once something is inside that box, then the game engine will check its collision mesh against the object's collision mesh. So if you make the bounding box too big the only thing that it will do is make the game engine work a little harder checking collision meshes before it really needs to.

 

On an old potato PC this might cause a bit of a performance issue, but on a modern PC it's not likely to matter.

Edited April 4, 2021 by madmongo