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Regardless of what 3D modelling package you use, the rules for creating geometry which will work stably in FS2/FRED2 remain the same. These are as follows:
All polygons in a model must be flat or at least very nearly flat. Polygons breaking the rule will be ignored Not only will they be invisible but you'll be able to shoot through them. If you have a non-flat face which is causing problems, split it into smaller flat faces using polygon draw.
Truespace is quite tolerant when it comes to non-flat polygons. It'll happily let you create one and won't give you any clues when you're looking at one. If you've got a polygon you suspect might be unflat you rotate your view around until you're looking straight across the surface of the polygon. From this angle it should be obvious whether the polygon is flat or not.
The solution to an unflat polygon is to add extra edges which split the polygon into a number of smaller polygons that are flat.
The FS2/FRED2 engine requires that you are able to connect every vertex on the border of the polygon to every other vertex using an imaginary line without leaving the boundary of the polygon. Polygons which break this rule will be ignored or drawn incorrectly.
The solution to a polygon breaking thsi rule is to add edges which split the polygon into a number of smaller polygons that do not break the rule.
Now this is a strange one. The FS2/FRED2 engines requires that no polygon includes 3 vertices in a straight line on it's border. Polygons which break this rule will be ignored or drawn incorrectly.
The solution to a polygon breaking thsi rule is to add edges which split the polygon into a number of smaller polygons that do not break the rule.
There is a limit on the number of polygons any sub-object of a model may have. As a general rule, any model including a sub-object with 750 or more faces may cause the FS2/FRED2 engine problems. That said, I have had stable models in FS2/FRED2 including sub-objects with up to 850 faces.
If the polygon count of a sub-object is causing problems, FS2 will usually do "the disk chugging black screen of death" when you try and load a mission including the offending model. Rarely the mission will load and you will see "the shards of death" sticking out of your model. FRED2 is more tolerant when it comes to high polygon counts, but only to a point. FRED2 will often load models FS2 will not. Although in those cases you will almost always see the shards of death. So seeing the shards of death in FRED2 is a reliable indicator that the poly count of one of your sub-objects is too high and your model will most likely not load in FS2.
One way around this limitation is to split any sub-objects with a high polygon count into a number of smaller sub-objects with lower polygon counts.
eg: The main hull of my Babylon Station model was causing problems at 850 polyons so I split it into a forward hull sub-object at 450 polyons and a rear hull sub-object at 400 polygons.
I think this is a limitation of most .pof handling utilities including PCS, rather than the FS2/FRED2 engine. Most .pof handling utilities will not handle an object which has any face bordered by 20 or more verticies.
The solution if you have any face bordered by 20 or more vertices is to add edges which split the polygon into a number of smaller polygons which are not bordered by 20 or more vertices.
