posted 05-10-2002 04:23 AM
This is just an educated guess.. could be completely wrong but.. From what I can gather the MIP objects are used for saving memory. They are used by the engine for when the enemy is far away from you. The MIP object is swapped with the more detailed enemy when you get closer to it. It's the same process as LOD (Level-of-detail). Many games use LOD to save memory - they have several copies of the same object at different resolutions which are seamlessly swapped with eachother according to how close you are to them.This may be the purpose of MIP - TR is probably only capable of swapping one mesh and only on selected enemies (a crocodile has few polygons compared to a scorpion so it has less need for a MIP as the frame-rate of the engine is unaffected by low poly objects - but I don't know why there are some crocs with MIPs and others without..).
The way to test this would be to texture the MIP for an enemy with bright red colours and run the game. If you see a bright red enemy in the distance running towards you that then changes into a normal looking enemy when it gets closer, then this is what the MIP is for.
WBM
[This message has been edited by Wee Bald Man (edited 05-10-2002).]
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posted 05-10-2002 12:57 AM
posted 05-10-2002 04:23 AM
posted 05-10-2002 06:58 AM
