A reasonable poly count for Skyrim models?

[Hagroth]

I haven't spent a second in any Contruction Set to any previous game, and I've just learned 3ds Max.

 

I've made a Viking ship and a house using splines and then a surface modifier. The poly count is very low (under 2000), in fact it's so low I'm starting to think you actually have to convert it to an editable poly or something first before converting it to a file supported by Skyrim and its CS. When I do convert it, I get a couple of hundred thousand polygons. I know the maximum poly count for a model is 64000. Is there any way to get around this? Or can you actually use the surface object?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Here's an image of the ship: http://imgur.com/XGaPz

Edited December 22, 2011 by Hagroth

[Matth85]

Eh... what? 200 000 polygons? ... No models would ever require that many polygons.

 

And yes, you need to turn the model into an editable poly, or mesh, before exporting. As far as I know, at least. You should also know game engines turn your whole model to tri's, so if you want to optimize: do it yourself manually.

 

By the way, why do you model using splines? I never found the use for it. Though that is because I am a fan of poly-modelling using a plane, a cylinder or a sphere. Never the box, for some reason.

 

Though take what I say with a grain of salt. I've learned that you need to turn the mesh to an editable mesh or polygon for ... well, everything. But I've never tested it myself

[Ghogiel]

Though take what I say with a grain of salt. I've learned that you need to turn the mesh to an editable mesh or polygon for ... well, everything. But I've never tested it myself

It needs to be converted to a mesh not an patch or spline, those would crash the exporter. I model in splines fairly often, they are best way to do a lot of things imo.

[Hagroth]

Eh... what? 200 000 polygons? ... No models would ever require that many polygons.

 

And yes, you need to turn the model into an editable poly, or mesh, before exporting. As far as I know, at least. You should also know game engines turn your whole model to tri's, so if you want to optimize: do it yourself manually.

 

By the way, why do you model using splines? I never found the use for it. Though that is because I am a fan of poly-modelling using a plane, a cylinder or a sphere. Never the box, for some reason.

 

Though take what I say with a grain of salt. I've learned that you need to turn the mesh to an editable mesh or polygon for ... well, everything. But I've never tested it myself

Like Matt said, splines+surface is a very useful method. Mostly because you can make very precise and accurate models with curves. Especially useful when it comes to cars, airplanes, buildings, viking ships... anything non-organic. But it's also pretty good for creatures and so on. In fact, once you've drawn the basic shape, you can edit and add vertices just like you would a poly or whatever. When I made everything manually, the ship was at less han 2000 polygons. When I converted it, the program makes extra polygons for the complicated curves and geometry, ending up in a very high total.

 

Take a look at this image of the dragon head I uploaded a while ago for another question at another forum (you can also see a small part of the rest of the ship): http://imgur.com/hloIT

See how awesome spline caging is? ;)

 

It needs to be converted to a mesh not an patch or spline, those would crash the exporter. I model in splines fairly often, they are best way to do a lot of things imo.

So you convert it to either an editable poly or mesh before exporting? But how many polygons do you usually end up with? This is a rather large model, about 30 meters long and 6 meters wide at its widest (in the middle).

[Matth85]

I model in splines fairly often, they are best way to do a lot of things imo.

Perhaps. Though I've only had more issues than anything with splines. But as I said: I am in love with starting with a plane, and model from there. It gives me the controll of depth than I require.

Personal prefferece I guess.

 

See how awesome spline caging is?

I understand that it is a viable worflow, but the poly-cutting and 2-sided dimension makes it tedious for me. I would use a plane and cut out what I wanted, extrude some, and get the flow of polygons I need from scratch. Though this is my preffered method.

 

So you convert it to either an editable poly or mesh before exporting? But how many polygons do you usually end up with? This is a rather large model, about 30 meters long and 6 meters wide at its widest (in the middle

).

How big a model is in meter is irrelevant. It depends how many polgyons you got, and the toplogy of it. If your ship got a ton of details all over, I could see it hit upwards to 30k polygons. But then the model would be the sole focus point, and majority of a scene.

A good topology would be wise to have.

 

Could you show us the model, so we could estimate how many you would need?

[PrometheusTS]

do not go over 25000 polygons and this is a serious high poly object , it also depends where are you going to place the model if inside or outside if inside and there are not many things around you could go for a slight higher polycount otherwise needs to be lower , an acceptable polycount for a Hero model could be a max of 10000 while for a normal model I would say 1000 to 3000 if pretty big and visible , otherwise the smaller the object the less polygons could have , ofcourse it depends on visibility and proportions .....

[Matth85]

do not go over 25000 polygons and this is a serious high poly object , it also depends where are you going to place the model if inside or outside if inside and there are not many things around you could go for a slight higher polycount otherwise needs to be lower , an acceptable polycount for a Hero model could be a max of 10000 while for a normal model I would say 1000 to 3000 if pretty big and visible , otherwise the smaller the object the less polygons could have , ofcourse it depends on visibility and proportions .....

Actually, you could go upwards to 25k polygons at certain points. Unless the engine Bethesda uses is way too old school. Most newer game got certain models at extreme polycount. However, said item is usualy the only visible in a scene. A scene can hold well over 30k polygons without lagging, and at some computers you can hit over 100k and still run smooth. So I would not say it is a huge "NONONO".

 

That said, there is very few models I know off that requries more than 10k polygons. And 10k polygons are usually only for characters.

 

I usually say 1k-5k is a nice bit of polygon for any decent model. A Barrel should go at a few hundred, and a statue at a few thousand.

Though it all depends on the context and focus point of the scene.

[Ghogiel]

do not go over 25000 polygons and this is a serious high poly object , it also depends where are you going to place the model if inside or outside if inside and there are not many things around you could go for a slight higher polycount otherwise needs to be lower , an acceptable polycount for a Hero model could be a max of 10000 while for a normal model I would say 1000 to 3000 if pretty big and visible , otherwise the smaller the object the less polygons could have , ofcourse it depends on visibility and proportions .....

Actually, you could go upwards to 25k polygons at certain points. Unless the engine Bethesda uses is way too old school. Most newer game got certain models at extreme polycount. However, said item is usualy the only visible in a scene. A scene can hold well over 30k polygons without lagging, and at some computers you can hit over 100k and still run smooth. So I would not say it is a huge "NONONO".

 

That said, there is very few models I know off that requries more than 10k polygons. And 10k polygons are usually only for characters.

 

I usually say 1k-5k is a nice bit of polygon for any decent model. A Barrel should go at a few hundred, and a statue at a few thousand.

Though it all depends on the context and focus point of the scene.

Well you could go over 25k poly, which would be 50k tris. but at that stage you are going ballistic, You only have another 15k before you crash the exporter. I have heard people getting more than 64ktri on a single object into nifs though, so I am not sure how true that limit is. But well, you'd just split it into 2 objects at that point...

 

I can be a poly prostitute: over 5k tri for a helmet 8)

 

 

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/wipz/TieWire.jpg?t=1310952516

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/wipz/TIErealtime.jpg

 

 

[PrometheusTS]

Nice but I gived that 25 k limit as a limit to Use , and never abuse , ofc you can go even 100 k may be but what's the point it would just slow down , crash the game or be unstable , I think a reasonable limit is a maximum of 15 k for a very important hero model but really if you want to exagerate then 25 shoudl be the ultimate limit , honestly I Woudl go for 5k for a huge sized object and for that helmet well I woudl have gone on a top of 1500 at the most I guess... usually you only make high poly models for objects that are in first line of sight , then decrease the count .... but you should also keep in mind that important is to make the Lods , the level of detail that the engine will load at more distant points of view ... the lower thebetter , but the art is in getting the highest detail in the minimal polycount ....

 

honestly tough is not much the polycount to hit on the machine but the textures , so the larger the texture size the worst , of course if you use 5 texturess of 4 x 4 k with over 30 k polygons , it would be a polynightmere to deal with ingame , it woudl look beautyfull surely but unpractical for most people that do not have good pcs...

[Matth85]

Of course, we should always respect the polygon count. However, I see no problem in adding a few extra here and there for fun. We are not making a game after all, we are adding fun stuff!

 

Though, as said earlier, there is very few models that need over 10k polygons. 4k polygons and a decent texture is enough for about everything I can think off exept armor sets and character models.