70,000 POLYGONS <---Video GAME Dev.

[myAM]

I need some advise and it was kind of hard to get any from the new user section. So I'm posting it here, in hope that is...

 

 

1. I asked Chris this, but I forgot to ask you guys too. I'm using a Riva tnt2 model 64, and it appears that anything more than 70,000 polygons puts it to its knees. I need some way to gauge how many polygons I have. Also some technique in "modeling" with less patches yet still producing subperb-looking models. Any advice or tricks?

 

 

2. Okay this is not 100% about video game development. Which is why I did not stick it in the "development section." My second tech. inquire is one that's been bugging me for some time now. Picture this: You make your model. Olay your done complete the finished details and polish. Now you decide to scale your model really really tiny/minature scale/nano... etc. Now you have a theory that by doing this you will save on memory the smaller it gets. Also you assume that it will still retain it's quality and detail no matter how far you keep reducing it. Fact or theory?

[Karl]

anything more than 70,000 polygons puts it to its knees.

 

You might want to check out Polygon Cruncher.

[zandoriastudios]

You can get your patchcount by right-clicking in the modeling window. When exporting to a polygon format there is an option to set for polygons per patch. Do the math.

 

 

A model of a cube that is 1cm takes the same memory as one that is a cube 1mile. size doesn't matter--it is the number of patches that A:M (or ANY program) has to keep up with.

[triath5147]

 

1. I asked Chris this, but I forgot to ask you guys too. I'm using a Riva tnt2 model 64, and it appears that anything more than 70,000 polygons puts it to its knees. I need some way to gauge how many polygons I have. Also some technique in "modeling" with less patches yet still producing subperb-looking models. Any advice or tricks?

 

Yes 70,000 polies is alot for a game. just as a rule of thumb, keep these things in mind:

 

1) Main character models should be between 800 and 3000 polies.

 

2) Decide what game Genre your going to use, for ex.

an isometric camera game, where the camera is far above looking down on the player, there is no need to have a high poly character, so the 800 range is fine: For a 3rd person camera, where you see the character more close up, you should be in the higher 2500 to 3000 range. Also consider your camera code. If it is a resident evil style fixed camera, you will need sufficient detail both front and back of model, if it is a chase camera, where ur looking at the characters back the whole time, it is not important to waste polies on the face, and front detail, etc..

3) Most game models, the detail is not in the mesh but in the skin. So texturing is the most important part.

4) look into bump and normal mapping to give the illusion of high poly, but still be low poly.

 

2. Okay this is not 100% about video game development. Which is why I did not stick it in the "development section." My second tech. inquire is one that's been bugging me for some time now. Picture this: You make your model. Olay your done complete the finished details and polish. Now you decide to scale your model really really tiny/minature scale/nano... etc. Now you have a theory that by doing this you will save on memory the smaller it gets. Also you assume that it will still retain it's quality and detail no matter how far you keep reducing it. Fact or theory?

 

A model of a cube that is 1cm takes the same memory as one that is a cube 1mile. size doesn't matter--it is the number of patches that A:M (or ANY program) has to keep up with.

 

 

Although in theory Zan is correct this is not true in reality...entirely. Yes as far as model poly count it stays the same weather it is big or small, there fore the model information is the same. But most game engines on the market are either BSP or Oct Tree. The engine geometry is calculated in portals. In a cube for instance each side of a cube is 2 polies. A cube that is immensly huge, do to view calculations, will be alot of portals, and this is calculated by pixel or quant whatever the engine uses. The smaller your character is, the less space, virtual space your level geometry will take up and therefore there are less visibility calculations. This keeps visible portal calculations lower, disk space smaller and FPS higher. Not to mention that most game engies have a virtual space limit per level, if your rooms and characters are huge, you may only beable to fit 3 or 4 rooms per level, if they are scaled down, you will beable to fit an entire castle courtyard and race track in one level.

So to sum it up, keep your models scaled down. on average all of the game models i've made for different people, have been, in AM scale, about 20cm in height.