Topic: Poly Count (Read 3745 times)

G_Kane · « **on:** March 16, 2004, 11:42:25 am »

What is the ideal poly count for a ship to be playable in a MOD?

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I've seen a lot of great looking ships, but no poly count next to those ships.

Can some of you gents or ladies, PLEASE, just post it.

Some of us don't have the equipment to check the poly count.

Thank You

NannerSlug · « **Reply #1 on:** March 16, 2004, 11:45:17 am »

there really is no guideline persae.

obviously the lower, the better performance wise - but from there it is highly subjective based upon what the modeler is seeking to do.

for instance, to get a bridge commander model at 15k polies in would be, well, darn near impossible. however, i think the average ship is about 3-5k polies.. but even still, most taldren ships are about 1500 to 2k polies.

hope that makes sense.

thanks.

Major A Payne · « **Reply #2 on:** March 16, 2004, 11:46:21 am »

Generally speaking I've noticed poly counts tend to vary from modeller to modeller and model to model. The lowest I've come across is around 800 polys and the highest is almost 12000. It just depends on the kind of detail your including.

red_green · « **Reply #3 on:** March 16, 2004, 12:06:09 pm »

It depends a great deal on the computer you run the game on. People with low end computers try to stick around 2000 polies. I can run 12000 polies in my game no problem. However I wouldn't want all my models to be that high. Cause if I had 6 ships in battle at once that would be a lot. So I consider 4000-5000 a good range for my system. There are other factors that can bog down your game also. A model mapped to a single 512 bitmap will load faster and tax your graphics card less than a ship mapped to four 1024 maps for example. Funny no one ever asks how many maps you are using. Most modelers include the poly count in the readme. I don't always display a poly count when I post a WIP because my WIP's are just that. Works in progress, many people don't seem to understand that and think my WIP are the finished ship (gets dam annoying some times). If you look at enough models, you can start to tell by how smooth or rough they look around the edges of a saucer or sphere.

G_Kane · « **Reply #4 on:** March 16, 2004, 12:12:45 pm »

I noticed ships with a poly count over 4000, causes a lot of lag in the game.

Its even worse, when I get into a mission with more than 6 ships, poly count varies, but there is one or 2 ships with a count over 4000.

Ships look great. But some shouldn't be playable with such a high count. IMHO

I hope this helps for some of you.

Keep an eye on your poly count when making a ship.

NannerSlug · « **Reply #5 on:** March 16, 2004, 12:22:00 pm »

you are absolutely right red green.. i have a few models i keep on my own machine with higher damage textures, but for the mod i break it down to 256 to reduce both download time and performance.

i also agree with poly count.

in fact, if you were to look at the bulk of the models produced since sfc1, they would definitely fall into the 4-5k range. again though, that depends solely on the persons goals and level of detail.

so kane, i am sorry, but if you were to put the type of filter you are talking about - it would elminate 95% of the models which are released. they certainly are playable as well. have been since sfc1.

red_green · « **Reply #6 on:** March 16, 2004, 12:22:28 pm »

Quote:

I noticed ships with a poly count over 4000, causes a lot of lag in the game.

Its even worse, when I get into a mission with more than 6 ships, poly count varies, but there is one or 2 ships with a count over 4000.

Ships look great. But some shouldn't be playable with such a high count. IMHO

I hope this helps for some of you.

Keep an eye on your poly count when making a ship.

It doesn't help me any. Think about it. Most modelers model ships to make ones that look better then the stock ones. If we made an Fed CA using the same number of polies as the stock one. It would not look any better than the stock one. There fore there would be no point. PLus people have different computers. So many can run the models you desribe with no lag.

You expect modelers to change how they model, and sacrifice the overall look of the ship to meet your system requirments.
Why not just use the lower poly models that people make. You will find both low and high poly ships here. I do'nt think its fair to ask people to lower the poly count unless you want to pay them for there work. Dam I think your post is selfish.

Taldren_Admin · « **Reply #8 on:** March 16, 2004, 02:18:38 pm »

One

with a really nice texture...

the game will speed up a great deal!

juuuust kidding

Stock models are usually low poly count becasue the artist doing them are paid to get as much bang for their poly buck as possible. The more polys the more resources you use just to render the ship let alone play the game.

Pretty is easy to achieve. Pretty and tight is not.

Ann

Chrystoff · « **Reply #9 on:** March 16, 2004, 02:21:08 pm »

Red, I don't think he expects anything. I think he was merely stating an opinion and asking if anyone would support it. There was nothing malcious in his intent, that I could see. Give some of the other modders a chance to answer; his request is not completely without merit. That's just my opinion, and I hope no one here takes it the wrong way. I worded it as carefully as I could.

G_Kane · « **Reply #10 on:** March 16, 2004, 06:03:40 pm »

thanks for the support.

..............bump

WickedZombie45 · « **Reply #11 on:** March 16, 2004, 06:21:23 pm »

Most modelers are well aware of the poly counts of their ships. Of course, most modelers also build ships for themselves, and not others, so they will add as much detail that they want and what their own computers can handle. This is more of a hobby than a community service, so we tend to indulge ourselves first, then worry about what the rest of the world wants.

Azel · « **Reply #13 on:** March 16, 2004, 07:07:27 pm »

Hey then I must be the Exception to that rule too huh...

Khalee · « **Reply #14 on:** March 16, 2004, 10:12:08 pm »

Well if you dont like High poly ships then you probably wont like mine, A high poly version of the Enterprise. Right now its at 35000 and climbing. Thinking about modeling the grid lines.

Rod O'neal · « **Reply #15 on:** March 16, 2004, 10:43:58 pm »

I believe that most modelers want to make something that they can feel proud of. Low poly just doesn't impress too many people. Maybe a better request might be to ask the modelers to be kind enough to include LODs for us. Atrahasis has started to do that with quite a few of his models and they run much better on my system than the originals did and his models look great. Wicked Zombie's Andro CA is another example of a very good looking model that has LODs and runs great, even in fleet battles. There are others. These are just some recent releases that come to mind.

There are some modelers that seem to take poly count into account and make nice looking lower poly models out there. Feral Yards, a lot of Desty Nova's, Terradyhnne's, etc...

...and thank you to Azel, for not minding to be asked to cap the polies. He made me some really nice Gorn meshes that I asked him to maintain a 2500 poly limit (+/- 10%). They look great. Very smooth and enough mesh detail that a good texturing job will finish them off nicely.

DISCLAIMER: I do enjoy and appreciate the hipoly, 40megs texture map beauties out there. They are wonderfull works of art and great models. They are obviously much more work than a 1500 poly one texture map model and should be appreciated for that. I intend no offense or disrespect to those models or the artists that create them.

Khalee · « **Reply #17 on:** March 17, 2004, 12:49:59 am »

You dont need a lot all I got is a p3 1.2 gig computer, With 1 gig of memory. It can go up to three, but I cant aford any more right now.

And as far as picts I just got done rebuilding the warp drive, got it cleaner looking this time so ill post some pictures later on today.

red_green · « **Reply #18 on:** March 17, 2004, 01:17:38 am »

Ahh must be the memory. I only have 125

I'm stuck with that for awhile I think. Looking forward to the uodate.

Captain Ron · « **Reply #19 on:** March 17, 2004, 01:40:30 am »

SFC does have a upper Poly limit I believe though.

And for those of you that are wondering LODs are used 90% of the time by the game. You only get the high poly version if you are very close to the ship, most of the time LOD 2 is used for most ranges. LOD 3 is only used at extreme ranges above 50 or so and really doesn't have to be added.

News:

Topic: Poly Count (Read 3745 times) var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};

G_Kane

NannerSlug

Major A Payne

red_green

G_Kane

NannerSlug

red_green

G_Kane

Taldren_Admin

Chrystoff

G_Kane

WickedZombie45

Captain Ron

Azel

Khalee

Rod O'neal

red_green

Khalee

red_green

Captain Ron

Topic: Poly Count (Read 3745 times)