To Use the gPoly Object Type

The gPoly geometry type uses the internal 3ds Max hardware mesh format. This makes it unnecessary to convert the mesh from editable format to the internal hardware format, resulting in a significant performance improvement when deforming high-resolution geometry.

• Make a selection. > Modify panel > Modifier list > Object-Space Modifiers > Turn to gPoly

You can use a modifier to convert an object to the gPoly format, or you can convert it directly using the modifier stack. With either method, gPoly has no modifiable parameters, thus no user interface.

Convert a selected object to gPoly format:

Use one of the following methods.

• Right-click the object in the viewport and choose Convert To Convert To Deformable gPoly
• With the Modify panel active, apply the Turn To gPoly modifier.
• With the Modify panel active, right-click the object's stack entry and choose Deformable gPoly.

Example: Use gPoly in character animation:

1. Animate a medium-to-high-resolution character mesh with Biped, using the Skin modifier to apply the skeleton motion to the mesh.
2. Open the Statistics panel and turn on Frames Per Second and Show Statistics In Active View.
3. Play the animation in the viewport and note the FPS display.

   If the viewport displays a high FPS value (say, above 50), the mesh might not be of high enough resolution to take advantage of the gPoly feature. In such a case, apply TurboSmooth to increase the mesh resolution.

4. In the modifier stack display, click the mesh item at the bottom (Editable Poly, Editable Mesh, or similar), then apply the Turn To gPoly modifier.

   The modifier is added to the modifier stack directly above the mesh item on the stack.

   Important: To improve performance, the mesh must be converted to the gPoly format before the Skin and TurboSmooth modifiers begin to work on it.
5. Play the animation again and note the FPS display.

   The displayed value is significantly higher than previously.