Topic: Poly Count (Read 3537 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.

Atrahasis · « **Reply #23 on:** March 17, 2004, 03:44:16 am »

I'll need to bring some facts to light to discuss this:

1) For the vast majority of the playing time, the most important model that is used is LOD 2, not LOD 1. This is because LOD 1 seems to kick in at a range of only 3 (or less) or so away from you, and LOD 2 kicks in at ranges beyond that out until when LOD 3 is used (which i don't know the exact number for, but it's pretty far). Ergo for most of the ranges where the shooting occurs and starships spend most of their time, it's LOD 2. This means:

A) You can make LOD 1 rather high-poly if you like, but I try to stay below 6000. Granted things may get tricky if you have saucers and cyclindrical warp engines to deal with.

B) LOD 2 is the model that you should really try to engineer to lower polies on. It's the model where you should be pulling all the tricks you know yet at the same time not sacrificing discernable quality. But since range 3 is actually somewhat far away from you, especially when th screen is at normal resolution, you don't need to make it that detailed....just sufficient. So for a LOD 1 model at 6000 polies, you should try to shave as much of that of as you can for LOD 2, say down to 3000 or so.

If at all possible, I believe if you can make a model at 1500 polies or less, you can make LOD 1 and LOD 2 the same model if you like.

Atrahasis · « **Reply #24 on:** March 17, 2004, 03:53:15 am »

Also, I might add that people should experiment more with the "optimize" function in Max with their meshes, to make the lower-poly meshes, but it's not always a viable solution to every problem. For example, I used it to lower the poly count on the TOP of a Fed saucer by 400 polies, but I couldn't use it on the BOTTOM of the saucer because it created mesh warping that made the textures look odd, because the bottom of the saucer has a steeper angle. However, if you consider that the BOTTOM of a ship model in the game is not seen often (I don't think the camera even pans to the bottom angles) then that means for LOD 2 you can get away with bastardizing the bottom areas of ships that are never seen, as much as you like, even if it causes warping or what not. LOD 1 people may want to use for renders outside of the game, but nobody cares about LOD 2.

ModelsPlease · « **Reply #25 on:** March 17, 2004, 04:24:59 am »

I will go on record as stating this I wish I could build ships for this game or even learn to texture.Alas my choice in being in the military and deployed doesn't truly allow me too take classes for it.But I appreciate everything each and every one of you modelers do.It was this passion that you all have for Star Trek and gaming that even made me join this forum and join in as a voice in the chorus.So thank you all and with that being said.............
GIMME MORE ModelsPlease

-MP

red_green · « **Reply #26 on:** March 17, 2004, 05:01:35 am »

Yea I can see where being deployed could put a crimp on things. Keep in mind that many of us just putz around in this. This forum has been kind of a class for me. I read stuff, it makes no sense. Then a month later while I am doing a model I remember reading something about the problem I have and it makes sense then. Like Atrahasis talking about LOD's . I really don't know how to do them yet but from reading here I probably could try them and struggle through it. Maybe asking a question or two. This stuff does take a while to pick up. I just now can make a so so model after about 16 months off and on. Fortunatly for me I am building for SFC3 which has dynamic LOD's. I started out by retexturing other peoples stuff. Most of it wasn't an improvement either. I just changed color schemes using a free editor. Then I bought milkshape for 20 bucks and its been a lot of fun but also a lot of frustration at times. I have to re-evaluate what it is I want out of this hobby.
I mean I am spread out all over amongst SFC1, 2 and 3. If I focused on 1 I could have a decent mod out by now.

Smiley · « **Reply #27 on:** March 17, 2004, 06:20:53 am »

Polies.....well, I try to make models for more than just one game, and recently I have been concentrating more on Armada 2 - because, well, I started out modding in Armada and I feel like I'd like to give something back, plus - even though it's and old game there are still a lot of models that haven't been made - the Jem'Hadar for example, even though they are a popular high profile race, they have not many built ships!....Ra....sorry went off topic there - but my point was that I make low poly models for Armada, I recently made a 827 poly Jem'Hadar Battleship for MP2 and I am very pleased with it, but it does use 2 1024x1024 TGAs and also uses lights maps, so that's like 8mb of texture memory already, of course the beauty of that it mip-mapping - you create copies of the same textures at lowering resolutions and the computer selects the appropriate one for the level of detail required, SFC can use the same thing....I think?
Plus there is a point I'd like to make that no one else have made - SFC3 using dynamic LODs? Does it not?
It all depends on the mind of the modeller and his target audience....whether the audience be his/herself, SFC1, SFC2x, SFC3, BC, Armada 1, Armada 2, Homeworld 1, Homeworld 2 etc.
I would like to go on record to say that all modellers should do their best to make the best models that they can at the lowest possible poly count - that's the mark of really good modellers, plus it's more efficient (green for the economy, Borg stylie) - but once again, depedant on the target destination of said model. I'm a newish modeller, I know that I could do better, but when I started I just actually wanted to get the right shape! lol

G_Kane · « **Reply #31 on:** March 17, 2004, 10:57:49 am »

Its interesting to read all the posts.

I have a good idea how some of you feel.

I started making ships because of this forum.

I wish I could make ships as good as what I've seen here,but it will take time.

now I try to make ships with a poly count of 2000 or less.

I don't want you guys to change because of me. Keep up the good work.

I love art and the work I've seen here is art.

Atrahasis · « **Reply #32 on:** March 17, 2004, 05:05:51 pm »

I don't think people should "keep their mouths shut" when it comes to constructive criticism. When I first started I got plenty of criticsm and I welcomed it, because I really wanted to know how to improve. You might be acquainted with the phrase "a trained eye"....it doesn't just evolve on its own, it needs input. I see a lot of work that could probably be improved but I don't notice anyone saying anything about it, and so the authors keep going about their work in the same style, not that that's necessarily bad, but it often means he's not improving...as in adding to his skills. Expanding his horizons. Whatever you wanna call it...

red_green · « **Reply #33 on:** March 18, 2004, 03:24:36 am »

No one was asking anyone to keep there mouth shut. Criticism is good. Unfortunately alot of criticism is too vague to be helpful. Responses like you destroyed that model or that sucks do nothing to guide a modeler to a better end product. I see responses like that and it doesn't sound like criticism, it sounds like an insult.

Other criticism usually involves personal taste. Someone might think the buzzards are the wrong color but it might be that the modeler prefers them that way. Criticism is best when a solution is provided. Like if you notice that a mesh is distorted instead of just saying the mesh looks distorted, it would help to explain how to correct it. Its very likely that the modder knows its distorted but doesn't know how to go about fixing it other wise they would have done it.

How criticism is presented is important. Just keep in mind that the model may have as much as 50 hours of work in it. It may be one of the 1st ones a modeler is doing. They may not know how to fix it.

I don't think any criticism in this thread was presented in the wrong way. But I have seen criticism go awry before.

Atrahasis · « **Reply #34 on:** March 18, 2004, 03:48:20 am »

Yeah, I agree with everything you said, a "fix" should be suggested when appropriate, but at times a plain simple "it just doesn't look right" can also be helpful. I've recieved some of those in the past, and in retrospect they were helpful comments because some things are hard to nail down with words.

MajorRacal · « **Reply #35 on:** March 18, 2004, 07:57:06 am »

Just to chip in, I agree with you there... Apart from the idea that other people might like to make use of my creations in time, feedback, good or ill is paramount to development, and it's one of the main reasons I like to post here. I've had some interesting feedback over the past 10 months, some of which I've taken onboard, and some I've ignored, but it's all been useful (and I thank you all for it!)

As for the poly count, I'm guilty of building higher poly models than perhaps is wise (now I'm working to claw the counts down without spoiling them)... The Liberator (oddly) is probably my worst offender with over 30000. Some of my earlier attempts breach the 10-15K level, but I'm trying to strike a balance of 4-6K wherever possible.

MajorRacal

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Topic: Poly Count (Read 3537 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

starforce2

G_Kane

Captain Ron

Atrahasis

Atrahasis

ModelsPlease

red_green

Smiley

starforce2

Chrystoff

Captain Ron

G_Kane

Atrahasis

red_green

Atrahasis

MajorRacal

Topic: Poly Count (Read 3537 times)