The Shape Options sub-panel of the exporter user interface contains misc. controls related to geometry, auto-billboard levels of detail (tslastdetail), and export scale.

Geometry type controls

The Geometry type settings are used to control how triangles are packed into a dts file and how they are displayed in Torque (by openGL or directX). This setting can have a huge impact on performance in Torque.

• Triangle Lists - Stores all triangles with a given material mapping in a single triangle list primitive. This is the fastest and most efficient method of storing and rendering geometry on almost all graphics cards.
• Triangles - Stores each triangle in it's own "Triangle List" primitive. This is the most wasteful and inefficient method of storing and rendering geometry.
• Triangle Strips - Stores all triangles in a mesh inside triangle strip primitives. The "Strip Size" slider allows you to control the maximum number of triangles in a strip. By default, triangle strips are created using the exporter's built-in triangle stripper. The VTK triangle stripper is also supported. Triangle strips are generally slower to render than triangle lists on most graphics cards. 

See Also:

• DTS Meshes - Geometry Types

Auto-Billboard LOD controls

These options allow for the export of a dts shape with an "auto-billboard" detail level. A model will be replaced with a flat "billboard" snapshot of the model when the pixel size of the model is between the billboard LOD size and the lowest (ordinary) visible detail level. The Billboard options are as follows:

• Equator spinner - The number of snapshots that will be taken around the equator of the model for each ring.
• Polar spinner - The number of snapshots of the model are taken "pole-to-pole" for each pass.
• Size slider - The Pixel size at which the detail level will display. This value must be lower than the size value of the smallest visible detail level in the shape; otherwise the shape will cause crashes when loaded in Torque and/or Showtool pro.
• Polar Angle slider - The maximum viewing angle of the model before it switches to the north or south pole view.
• Dim spinner - The dimensions of the snapshot in pixels.
• Pole spinner - Allows you to choose whether or not to export snapshots for the poles (directly above and below the object).

The total number of billboard snapshots that will be taken is equal to:

(number of equator snapshots) x (number of polar snapshots) + 2 if "Poles" is also enabled.

Performance note: Keep in mind that billboard detail levels are dynamically generated whenever the engine loads a .dts shape. If you are exporting a large number of snapshots for your models, it can really slow down the load time of your game and increase memory requirements.

See Also:

• LOD - Levels of Detail

Export Scale Control

This control allows the entire scene to be scaled up or down upon export.  A value of 1.0 (the default) exports at 1:1 scale (1 Blender unit = 1 Torque unit).  A value of 2.0 doubles the size of the exported DTS shape, while a value of 0.5 reduces the size of the exported shape to one half of normal scale.

Note: Since a wide range of values is allowed for this control, the left and right "arrows" are a bit useless.  Clicking the arrows quickly results in absurd scale values.  For this reason it is recommended that you left-click in the center of the control once and then enter the desired scale value using the keyboard.  Although the control itself can only display one decimal place, smaller or more precise values can be entered by hand.

See Also:

• Notes on Scale