Polygon count
by Kory Imaginism · in Artist Corner · 03/27/2006 (1:02 pm) · 12 replies
How high can i make a character in a game? i heard that you can load in 20k but i heard that you can only use 10k. What do most people use to make the main character? and if i did use a 20k character how slow would the frame rate per second be?
#2
03/27/2006 (1:37 pm)
I got a ATI Radeon X1800 XL 256mb, with a AMD 64 athlon 3400 series it a good computer, do you think that 20k for the main character would work? thank you for responding you are help me out alot. 
#3
03/27/2006 (1:42 pm)
Will you have anything else other than the main character on the screen? Terrain perhaps, buildings, other "main" characters with similar polycounts?
#4
03/27/2006 (1:46 pm)
I was think about making the enemies about 10k or lower and i was trying to add buildings and cars but i was trying to find out how low i should reduce it? but yeah it should have alot going on the screen at once. 
#5
03/27/2006 (2:01 pm)
IMO 10k is a little too high from what your saying, I would try and stay under 5k.
#6
This is based on the Unreal Engine, but I believe it's relative to all optimized game engines that run off of hardware acceleration.
Research the recommended system requirements for those games, compare them to the number of polies that they rendered on screen at any point in the game, and you can link that to the tech level your game will cater to, thus finding out the range of polycount you should go for. Remember that the number of polies rendered on-screen at any time stacks up fast when you want to add more and more variety to your levels and characters/enemies.
03/27/2006 (2:09 pm)
Here's something that might help you figure out how many polies you should spare for your characters and levels: http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/UnrealModeling#Comparative_Detail_LevelsThis is based on the Unreal Engine, but I believe it's relative to all optimized game engines that run off of hardware acceleration.
Research the recommended system requirements for those games, compare them to the number of polies that they rendered on screen at any point in the game, and you can link that to the tech level your game will cater to, thus finding out the range of polycount you should go for. Remember that the number of polies rendered on-screen at any time stacks up fast when you want to add more and more variety to your levels and characters/enemies.
#7
Car
Building
main Character?
Enemies?
and how slow do you think it would be if it was 20k?
And how high are next generation games like fight night round 3 characters? And is it just the texture?
03/27/2006 (2:10 pm)
Thanks for your responds Westy but how high should alot of the stuff be?Car
Building
main Character?
Enemies?
and how slow do you think it would be if it was 20k?
And how high are next generation games like fight night round 3 characters? And is it just the texture?
#8
"It depends" because we have no clue what your game design is like, how many entities will be on the screen at once, how high-poly those entities will be, occlusion techniques that you will be using, your texture size and quality, your network metrics, etc. If for example, you are creating a fighting game, most of the arenas and characters can be at a higher polycount than say a FPS or RTS that has several things on the screen at once. The limited scope of enclosed arenas allows for greater detail. The "openness" of other game types can dampen the high-poly quality while giving a heightened sense of immersion since they players are not constantly smacked with a loading screen.
Many games today are using normal mapping and bump mapping to "fake" a ultra-high poly model. There are a number of techniques to perform similar "faking".
03/27/2006 (2:19 pm)
Again, the definitive answer to your query is "it depends". If you are building your engine from scratch using specific target specifications, you can eek out more performance as you fine-tune the engine to work on more and more limited hardware (note that I do not mean that the hardware itself is limited, but that you are limiting the amount of hardware that your title will work on)."It depends" because we have no clue what your game design is like, how many entities will be on the screen at once, how high-poly those entities will be, occlusion techniques that you will be using, your texture size and quality, your network metrics, etc. If for example, you are creating a fighting game, most of the arenas and characters can be at a higher polycount than say a FPS or RTS that has several things on the screen at once. The limited scope of enclosed arenas allows for greater detail. The "openness" of other game types can dampen the high-poly quality while giving a heightened sense of immersion since they players are not constantly smacked with a loading screen.
Many games today are using normal mapping and bump mapping to "fake" a ultra-high poly model. There are a number of techniques to perform similar "faking".
#9
Of course I'm talking about a FPS with over a hundred players, so all of the characters are the same as far as triangle count goes.
03/27/2006 (3:04 pm)
I try to keep my characters at or below 2000 triangles, and vehicles under 3500(usually around 2500), also depending on the size. LOD is an important thing also. I'm just getting into that, and I hope it will raise my frame rates a little. Of course I'm talking about a FPS with over a hundred players, so all of the characters are the same as far as triangle count goes.
#10
03/27/2006 (3:09 pm)
Willbkool i'm new to modeling what is the sizes of tringles if you had a 2000 triangle how many ploygons is that?
#11
These are very, very basic things you are asking about, and is something you will understand if you start practicing modeling. For whatever software you're using to model, there is probably a community that revolves around it, plenty of documentation and tutorials for beginners, and other resources. Please use them, they're there for a reason.
03/27/2006 (3:20 pm)
A triangle is a polygon. Thus 2000 triangles = 2000 polies. Always calculate your polycount by the number of tris it has. This means that every polygon in a model with 4+ sides must be triangulated (divided into triangles) before you count them. Some software applications can give you the triangle polycount without you needing to triangulate them manually.These are very, very basic things you are asking about, and is something you will understand if you start practicing modeling. For whatever software you're using to model, there is probably a community that revolves around it, plenty of documentation and tutorials for beginners, and other resources. Please use them, they're there for a reason.
#12
@William
There's an "Apply Here" link at the bottom of all job postings.
12/22/2008 (12:20 am)
Hello 2-year-old thread ;p@William
There's an "Apply Here" link at the bottom of all job postings.
Associate David Montgomery-Blake
David MontgomeryBlake
It's not a "10k is a very good number that everyone should go with!" estimation.