character's polies
by Noah Gomes · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 03/17/2013 (12:52 pm) · 6 replies
Does anyone know what is the highest poly count that torque can take per character
Thank you
Thank you
About the author
#2
I would think you could start with a minimum object; for instance; your project has to do with wheelchair races. Create the most BASIC model that you can. Heck make the wheels square to start with...whatever works for now. Test that model using levels that include AI, or multiplayer and environments and see how it performs. If you want MORE detail and your target machine appears to support it, then expand on your base model with more detail. It's all about testing and trial and error, and determining your 'minimum' spec.
Unfortunately, there is no "right" answer to this question. It's a question of balance and performance based on whatever machine specs you are trying to reach. Hope that helps and good luck!
Ron
03/17/2013 (10:13 pm)
As far as any individual model's poly requirements, you can go as high as you like. Just keep in mind that you have to test your levels in multiple scenes and scenarios. For example: you can have a main character that is 10K polys, but will it work when your scene is 2 million polys without characters? I don't think so.I would think you could start with a minimum object; for instance; your project has to do with wheelchair races. Create the most BASIC model that you can. Heck make the wheels square to start with...whatever works for now. Test that model using levels that include AI, or multiplayer and environments and see how it performs. If you want MORE detail and your target machine appears to support it, then expand on your base model with more detail. It's all about testing and trial and error, and determining your 'minimum' spec.
Unfortunately, there is no "right" answer to this question. It's a question of balance and performance based on whatever machine specs you are trying to reach. Hope that helps and good luck!
Ron
#3
A lot of our characters are usually between 10-15k polys. But as Ron has said, it's all subjective and depends on the nature of your project and it's requirements.
03/18/2013 (6:49 am)
A good working limit to aim at for high quality characters is around 20k polys - of course you can go higher but you'd have to make sacrifices in other areas such as your game world and post fx etc. etc.A lot of our characters are usually between 10-15k polys. But as Ron has said, it's all subjective and depends on the nature of your project and it's requirements.
#4
Take a FPS game, for example. The weapon that the player is holding is usually very high-poly. It is the closest object to the camera and will be scrutinized most heavily by the player. Objects that are higher than twice the player's height, which the player will never get closer to are usually extremely low poly (high texture detail, e.g. normals, diffuse, specularity, ambient occlusion, etc.).
The main thing to determine is how many polys can torque render efficiently on your system. That is, how many total polys can your scene contain in one render without causing unwanted performance issues? If your number is 1.5 million polys (being pretty generous),and your current scene only contains 1.2 million polys, then you could create a character with 100,000 polys without worry (even 250,000). Also ask yourself, "How many of these characters will appear in the scene at a time?"
03/18/2013 (11:31 am)
Consider what you are modeling. How is your game being played? World (static meshes) in your game which the player does not interact with or objects which will never be close to your camera should be very low poly. Objects that are closest to your camera should have the MOST detail.Take a FPS game, for example. The weapon that the player is holding is usually very high-poly. It is the closest object to the camera and will be scrutinized most heavily by the player. Objects that are higher than twice the player's height, which the player will never get closer to are usually extremely low poly (high texture detail, e.g. normals, diffuse, specularity, ambient occlusion, etc.).
The main thing to determine is how many polys can torque render efficiently on your system. That is, how many total polys can your scene contain in one render without causing unwanted performance issues? If your number is 1.5 million polys (being pretty generous),and your current scene only contains 1.2 million polys, then you could create a character with 100,000 polys without worry (even 250,000). Also ask yourself, "How many of these characters will appear in the scene at a time?"
#5
03/18/2013 (12:55 pm)
OK thank you everybody. I thought I had to stay under 10000,but take isn't working for chairs. I need help making chair work, because it isn't working 
#6
However, I would advise that you really don't focus too heavily on poly budget until you appreciate the distance and level of detail you need. Ie for our MMO game we have a player the player character below from our soon to be release character packs at only 2,000 polys. Now this is still TOO HIGH for us poly count wise and we have got some of our characters to less than 1,500 at LOD0
However for example at 3rd person view do we even need that many polys as from this shot shows. We should be able to reduce this down hugely for the main part of playing our game - perhaps down to 1,000 where we have been before using LODs
So I would suggest that you think briefly about how far you will see the character, what level of detail will you see at that distance and what do you really need to show - also us LODs massively to improve performance. There's no need to have a character in the distance at 20,000 polys. What I would also suggest is that you keep in mind texture sizes too for texture memory in the game. The images here uses a range of textures and sizes on the same model, but will still comes out less than a single 1024 x 1024 texture.
I hope this was helpful, but in summary dont get hung up on poly counts just yet until you know at what distance you will see the character and the level of detail you want to show at that respective distance and then use LODs to help switch between close up and gameplay.
Tim
03/18/2013 (4:13 pm)
Hi Noah, the advice above is well give and Ron's comments about testing, testing, testing is critical. Plus also the comments about whether the characters are your main character or just an extra/environment filler. Main characters should obviously have higher poly's than the environment/other characters etc.However, I would advise that you really don't focus too heavily on poly budget until you appreciate the distance and level of detail you need. Ie for our MMO game we have a player the player character below from our soon to be release character packs at only 2,000 polys. Now this is still TOO HIGH for us poly count wise and we have got some of our characters to less than 1,500 at LOD0
However for example at 3rd person view do we even need that many polys as from this shot shows. We should be able to reduce this down hugely for the main part of playing our game - perhaps down to 1,000 where we have been before using LODs
So I would suggest that you think briefly about how far you will see the character, what level of detail will you see at that distance and what do you really need to show - also us LODs massively to improve performance. There's no need to have a character in the distance at 20,000 polys. What I would also suggest is that you keep in mind texture sizes too for texture memory in the game. The images here uses a range of textures and sizes on the same model, but will still comes out less than a single 1024 x 1024 texture.
I hope this was helpful, but in summary dont get hung up on poly counts just yet until you know at what distance you will see the character and the level of detail you want to show at that respective distance and then use LODs to help switch between close up and gameplay.
Tim
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