What do you aim for?

#1 It's pretty much impossible to answer I'm afraid. If you will have a maximum of 2 characters on the screen at once (and no other models whatsoever) you can probably use tens of thousands without too much trouble. But if you're planning to have 2000 characters running around you'll want it to be much lower.

It also depends on what hardware you're targeting and what you consider "most machines".

So, basically; We can't answer the question, you'll have to try it out in your particular game and benchmark it.

#2 Accepting the caveats mentioned previously, 2000 polys is acceptable given the norms of most current games on the market.

Of course, as stated, the fewer characters on screen at a time, the more detailed you are free to get with your mesh design.

On the other hand, it's always a good idea to consider what truly needs to be modelled into the mesh, versus what can more easily be achieved by liberal use of good texturing practices.

Furthermore, use of LOD meshes (level of detail) can signifcantly reduce strain on the GPU when mutliple, higher detail characters are in the scene.

Short version: at 2000 polys, you're more than likely "good to go".

#3 Alright, thanks. :D

#4 Personally, I shoot for a polycount under 1200.

Having less polygons makes the rigging and UVmapping steps easier too, and that can be important since UVmapping is quite painful.

#5 Plan your model well. You could make it quite difficult for the artist painting the model if it's not built and unfolded correctly with painting in mind. You can really get a lot of extra detail from the skin alone and not necessarily with more polys.

#6 I realise that a good combination of polygons and UV Mapping are needed to make models look really well while performing well; I think Deus Ex is a good example of this.

Another question arose for me recently; what do most high-poly characters end up being on average? I've got an idea of what to aim for (the 2000 area), but I'm wondering what I should stay away from; I ask this because I'm looking to make my game be able to run on a good deal of machines, as opposed to mainly the higher-end ones.

#7 To put it into thought i guess.....Forza Motorsports, a racing game for xbox, although highly specialized hardware, each car in the game uses about 15k polys per car, on average, with 8 cars on screen, and very good amount of detail in the tracks etc...

but on another good note, IMO one of the best looking Mechwarrior Games was Mechwarrior 3, which used directx 6, and each model was about 500polys, it was the great texturing of those models where it looked like a 1200poly model...

currently a Mech robot im building is using about 5k faces or about 7k polys i believe. Pretty high but im aiming for only 12 players on screen at once...

But with the texture madness im currently going threw, i give props to texture painters and mappers, because im going nuts....I know i could probably reduce a good 1k polys, but it just looks so damn nice i dont want to lol. plus i suck at texturing lol.

but for a current generation, where 6600 is considered entry level gaming pc GFC, a 2-5k mark would probably be ok.

#8 To put it into thought i guess.....Forza Motorsports, a racing game for xbox, although highly specialized hardware, each car in the game uses about 15k polys per car, on average, with 8 cars on screen, and very good amount of detail in the tracks etc...

but on another good note, IMO one of the best looking Mechwarrior Games was Mechwarrior 3, which used directx 6, and each model was about 500polys, it was the great texturing of those models where it looked like a 1200poly model...

currently a Mech robot im building is using about 5k faces or about 7k polys i believe. Pretty high but im aiming for only 12 players on screen at once...

But with the texture madness im currently going threw, i give props to texture painters and mappers, because im going nuts....I know i could probably reduce a good 1k polys, but it just looks so damn nice i dont want to lol. plus i suck at texturing lol.

but for a current generation, where 6600 is considered entry level gaming pc GFC, a 2-5k mark would probably be ok.

#9 1200 is a fair count for simple textured character (no shaders: bump, normal map, specs and detail). But don't expect to look good on more than 800x600 res. nowadays with shaders and engine performance tweaks, i gues you can go at around 4 k and if you really nead details on the head (for lip sync, an example) go for a 5.000 poly.

#10 Here is what I currently work at:


Background character in a first/third person game without facial animation or finger articulation, 500 - 1000 polys with a joint limit of 15.

Main character in a first/third person game without facial animation or finger articulation, 1000-2000 polys with a joint limit of 30.

Main character in a third person game (always seen at a slight distance) with facial animation and finger articulation, 2000 - 3000 polys with a joint limit of 60.

Main character in first person game (can be seen up close) with facial animation and finger articulation, 3000 - 6000 polys with a joint limit of 60.

Notice there is a huge jump in poly and joint counts when you want to add finger articulation and facial animation. A character with a head that deforms well for facial animation could have up to 1000 polys in the head alone. Finger articulation adds a lot of polys too. If you do not plan to animate the face or fingers then you can probably get away with the 1000 - 2000 poly limit.

If you use LODs, keep in mind that your highest res character meshes will not be seen often in game (only when a character gets up close). The second LOD will probably be seen most, so special attention should be paid to it. So if you have a character with facial/finger animation at 4000 polys, the second LOD might still be a bit detailed at 3000 polys. From there you could take out huge chunks shooting for 1000, 500, then 150.

#11 Alright, thanks, everyone.

My character was originally at around 2000 polys, but after setting up for some facial animations and a couple of other small things, it hit around 3000-4000, so I suppose I'm hitting a pretty decent range.