Polygon Count

[killstorm37]

Ok, [sorry in advance for grammar],

 

My friend and I model in light wave, and then convert to nif using blender, to make our mods, so most of our models tend to have 10,000-20,000 polys [because we use subpatches alot]. Is this to mutch?

What is, in your opinion, a good range for a fairly detailed gun or sword?

 

Just curious, i belive 20,000 is rather over kill, but im used to animating 3-D Shorts rather than games.

 

Thanks , KS

[LHammonds]

It completely depends on the game engine...for NIFs, there is a hard limit on how many polys are allowed but to get the best answer every time, look at what shipped with the game and examine the poly count of like items.

 

For example, in Oblivion, you could take a look at the Daedric, steel, Elven and Glass cuirasses and get an overall average and max/min counts for what the developers thought were good for the game engine.

 

But also keep in mind that those were designed in mind to have many instances of them on the screen at one time. You could however get away with a larger poly count if you create a unique item...but if you take that high poly item and turn it into a replacer for existing game meshes, you might see the frames drop significantly depending on how many are onscreen at the same time and your particular computer specs.

 

LHammonds

[killstorm37]

Ok thanks, Thats what i figured. [About the one of a kind item anyway]

 

Thanks for your advice

[throttlekitty]

Polycount is kind of relative, it really depends on what you're making. (slight) Overkill would be: 30 faces on a cube when 6 would do, or a 24 sided cylinder for a tin can clutter piece.

[Ghogiel]

A gun could be anywhere between 1000-5000 tris for a nextgen hero weapon. As Tk said it is quite relative. things like screen time, on screen size, like a fps weapon you would use a fair amount of poly on details, as they can end up occupying 1/5 of the actual screen right up close. this is also evident on characters, heads tend to be about double the resolution in both poly and textures compared to a body.

 

anyway it would be wise to use what the game uses to judge a decent poly count. every game will vary slightly on how poly heavy they are. oblivion is poly heavy to the point of being naughty.

 

From something I have read on GameDev, the way gfx cards make draw calls for meshes, and this in 2007, that the simple fact that the gfx card has to make a draw call costs the performance,, and fires chunks of poly through the pipe, apparently this is about 300tri for average cards in 2007. What I understood, is that if it makes a draw call at all, you can basically use 300tris and it won't even hardly notice a difference between 1tris and 300tris. it's only after that it starts to change the render time of the object

 

For optimization try make as few draw calls as possible. So stuff everything onto one texture sheet as much as possible. The nif/mesh size also balloons rapidly the more mesh objects that are contained in the nif. Especially if it is skinned.

 

The solution to wasting poly, is creating the in game geometry after the high poly is created, then baking a normal map. imo, It yields the best looking results and for the least overhead.

 

oh an too much would be a little over 64k tris per mesh object. which is the max.you end of freaking the exporters out once the mesh gets very large. anyway, I think my largest meshes have been about 25k tris.

[killstorm37]

A gun could be anywhere between 1000-5000 tris for a nextgen hero weapon. As Tk said it is quite relative. things like screen time, on screen size, like a fps weapon you would use a fair amount of poly on details, as they can end up occupying 1/5 of the actual screen right up close. this is also evident on characters, heads tend to be about double the resolution in both poly and textures compared to a body.

 

anyway it would be wise to use what the game uses to judge a decent poly count. every game will vary slightly on how poly heavy they are. oblivion is poly heavy to the point of being naughty.

 

From something I have read on GameDev, the way gfx cards make draw calls for meshes, and this in 2007, that the simple fact that the gfx card has to make a draw call costs the performance,, and fires chunks of poly through the pipe, apparently this is about 300tri for average cards in 2007. What I understood, is that if it makes a draw call at all, you can basically use 300tris and it won't even hardly notice a difference between 1tris and 300tris. it's only after that it starts to change the render time of the object

 

For optimization try make as few draw calls as possible. So stuff everything onto one texture sheet as much as possible. The nif/mesh size also balloons rapidly the more mesh objects that are contained in the nif. Especially if it is skinned.

 

The solution to wasting poly, is creating the in game geometry after the high poly is created, then baking a normal map. imo, It yields the best looking results and for the least overhead.

 

oh an too much would be a little over 64k tris per mesh object. which is the max.you end of freaking the exporters out once the mesh gets very large. anyway, I think my largest meshes have been about 25k tris.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok thanks alot for that advice.

[throttlekitty]

Something you'll also hear a lot is "If it doesn't contribute to the silhouette, then it doesn't need to be there."

[LHammonds]

Something you'll also hear a lot is "If it doesn't contribute to the silhouette, then it doesn't need to be there."

Ah yes, this is a primary question I ask myself when adding polycount to my models. I tend to over-do-it when I forget to ask myself this question.

[throttlekitty]

It's helpful to drop the lighting on your model now and again to check the silhouette. In Maya, there's a hotkey to use scene lights, but if you haven't made any, the model is totally black with no shading- not sure how this can quickly be done in Blender.

[killstorm37]

Ok, thanks agin for all the advice, and i guess ill just start using smoothing more often than subdivision. makes uv mapping easyer too.