Max Poly Question

[ShaZe]

Hey guys, was just wondering how much poly you put on your characters, weapons, ennemies and objects in your mod. Just to know how much the engine like doom3 can handle.

 

I am getting 2,2 k for a character, but for somes objects made with cylinders, it can raise up quickly if I don't want it to look "edged".

 

Thanks for the answers.

[Dram]

As far as I remember it's 2500 polys for characters, 2000 for weapons, and about 250 for small objects such as a vase etc

[ShaZe]

As far as I remember it's 2500 polys for characters, 2000 for weapons, and about 250 for small objects such as a vase etc

 

Ok, thanks a lots

[Kristus]

You can actually go as high as you want, only the specs of the hardware is the limit afaik.

[Dram]

You can actually go as high as you want, only the specs of the hardware is the limit afaik.

 

Yes but obviously if someone is to actually use them then it has to be relatively low or you'll end up with something like Oblivion - super high poly models which slow down the game like shit and give no significant advatage to visual appearence.

[bob_arctor]

Oblivion is high poly?

Really?

 

Those faces better not be, they all look like they have mumps.

 

Or is that in a backstory book, the great mump infections?

[oDDity]

Some of the character models in Oblivion with full armour are 15,000+ polys.

[Domarius]

Yeah I downloaded a mod that is a WIP intended to cut the whole thing down, poly-wise. There was something ridiculous, like a single type of rock that was close to 10,000 polys and they cut it down to a couple of hundred with no noticible difference. It's a good mod, I should get an update of it.

[Nyarlathotep]

Link?

[Domarius]

Sorry, I thought it would be easy to find. I had to find it again myself.

http://www.tessource.net/files/file.php?id=6981

[Baddcog]

Hey guys, new to the forum.

 

I didn't think it would lead me to DLing an Oblivion Mod. Although my new machine runs Oblivion pretty darn good.

 

Anyway, the reason I did sign up is that I just dropped $10 on Doom3 now that I can it, my system handles it great and I am bored with Dromed.

 

I was interested in polycounts so...

Interesting that Dram says object polys should be about 250, hopefully this engine runs higher polys than that. I'm installing the SDK today, unfortunately I put Doom3 in the default Program Files folder and have to reinstal.

I have been pushing upwards of 1500 polys on my latest Thief2 objs and was hoping Doom3 will run closer to Morrowind or Oblivion poly counts. I think my Morrowing bottles were at least 400 polys. (Schwaa's Potion Upgrade)

 

Anyway, I'm going to roound up some screenies and e-mail the team, but I do have most of my objects here, some screens of my Morrwind stuff too, on Schwaa's Morrowind page.

http://thiefmissions.com/lpg

Edited April 21, 2007 by Baddcog

[Komag]

Schwaa! I'll have to get used to Baddcog (even though I know it's been that way a long time)

 

I don't know anything about poly counts, but I'm positive that anything you contributed would be high quality, as it always is. We can ALWAYS use more objects of every kind!

[Baddcog]

Schwaa! I'll have to get used to Baddcog (even though I know it's been that way a long time)

 

I don't know anything about poly counts, but I'm positive that anything you contributed would be high quality, as it always is. We can ALWAYS use more objects of every kind!

 

Awesome, I'm down. I've been doing a bit of stuff for T2 lately- high poly- that I'm about to release. But I don't see it getting much use. I'll package some stuff up and send it to you guys, you can check it out in T2 for now I guess, I still have to successfully port something to D3 before I make any promises , got the exporter though so it shouldn't be hard.

 

If you want or need anything specific let me know, at the very least I could model/texture and send a 3ds file. I'd love to work off some comcept art as most of my stuff is just ground up in max with just a foggy idea of what I want.

[Crispy]

You probably can go higher than 250 for the main mesh - the problem is the shadows. Doom 3 shadows are all dynamic and realtime, so they're pretty expensive. You can have a separate shadow mesh that's different from the main mesh, which helps; so your shadow mesh can be very low-poly while your main mesh is more detailed.

 

Also remember that D3 can use normal maps (unlike T2, I think?) which can make low-poly objects look much higher-poly.

 

We do have a list of needed models. If you'd like to contribute some additional work perhaps New Horizon can set you up as a contributor and then we can go from there.

[Komag]

Ah, of course I should have thought of the normal-mapping. So you should use all your modeling power and make super awesome ultra-high poly stuff, then normal map it, then make the low poly version which will still look pretty great.

 

I still have no idea how to actually go about all that, but it's the theory. It really does look good I think, allowing for more objects in the room because they aren't actually too high poly each.

[Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat]

I have been thinking for a while, and now this thought precipitated enough to be typed, that eventually a limit will be reached and maintained where the density of polygons on screen equals approximately the number of pixels on screen, with the decision made whether to render or not render them made on the proximity to the player and therefore their visibility. Then one might have from almost none to huge amounts of polygons in the form of many high-detailed objects in the room and the performance will almost be the same. The reason for "almost" is because the increased amount of polygons increases the load in pre-processing the decision to render them or not based on the player distance and visual area.

[Crispy]

If rendering polygons was that cheap, I think you'd probably just calculate visibility based on bounding boxes and portals, both of which aren't dependent on numbers of polygons. That way your overhead doesn't increase, and since polygons are so cheap it hardly matters if you render a few too many.

[SneaksieDave]

Awesome, welcome. All of this is AFAIK, and some opinion, so take it with a pinch of salt. Polycount targets are definitely not as high as Morrowind or Oblivion, which are known to be very unoptimized (even careless) in that area, and have different (and simpler) lighting systems than D3. However, the numbers Dram may have mentioned are geared toward TDM scenes being able to have a lot of objects, and a lot of detail overall. Sure, a cart could have 4000 polys, but when in a scene with a sculpture, a decorative gate, two builder guards, a fountain, etc etc etc, it'd be better if the cart was only 800. Plus as Crispy said, normalmaps use light to add unlimited detail (as I'm sure you're aware). So, we can go higher of course, but we still try to aim in the conservative range, so that more detail can be thrown into scenes as a whole, instead just into one object. Hopefully that makes sense.

[Baddcog]

Crispy, that would be awesome.

 

Last night I got as far as improting and exporting a dm5 mesh and anim(no keyframes).

Had to add 2 bones to my lamp to export (like the wrench has)

 

I also noticed that all the objects seem to be ase and lwo format.

Unfortunately I have Max5 which doesn't export LWo and I've never heard of ASE files. Accutrans will import LWO but not export.

 

Anyone know of a freeware conversion program from 3ds to lwo?

 

I've been DLing pages of the Wiki and will keep at it, I have limited time so I'm sure it'll be a few weeks before I get much done.

 

I did play with Dark Radiant, but have yet to get an obj to show, haven't got a map to load (can't find em) and have no idea how to play test a map. Also, I installed Doom3 editor, but I have no Icon to start

 

I know, silly newb Q's for now. But i can model, really.

I'll upload and send a few pics...

-----

 

Oh yeah, i understand the bump map thing and it does make a huge difference for sure.

[OrbWeaver]

ASE is exported natively by 3DS Max, as far as I am aware.

[Baddcog]

ASE is exported natively by 3DS Max, as far as I am aware.

 

 

hmm, I didnt see it in the export list, will have to look again.

[OrbWeaver]

It's short for "ASCII Scene Export", it may be listed under something similar to this.

[Baddcog]

It's short for "ASCII Scene Export", it may be listed under something similar to this.

 

 

Oh of course I do have ASC II as an option.

 

I'll probably have loads of Q's eventually but this helps alot for now, thanks

 

Alright, exported ascII, placed it in the proper folders and it came up in the obj list.

Although it is all blue right now, using .tga and .dds textures which seems to be the norm, believe I've got all the path names and whatnot correct. I got a lamp zipped up, anyone care to take a look and tell me what's wrong?

Edited April 22, 2007 by Baddcog

[Domarius]

I have been thinking for a while, and now this thought precipitated enough to be typed, that eventually a limit will be reached and maintained where the density of polygons on screen equals approximately the number of pixels on screen, with the decision made whether to render or not render them made on the proximity to the player and therefore their visibility.

Well I don't think distance would be enough to go on - just because a polygon is smaller than a pixel does'nt mean it won't be drawn. If it doesn't draw that polygon, which polygon will it draw instead? If it was just based on distance, everything would disapear into blackness after a certain distance. There needs to be something drawn.

[Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat]

incorrectly interpreted.

from distance A ball of N polygons represented by circle of M pixels of various shades depending on lighting. Say mapping every other polygon to the pixel.

from distance B which is closer, same ball has N pixels, for each polygon.

distance C, closer, N+J pixels, a few per polygon.

standing close to high poly object means other objects not seen, poly count limited.

essentially there's always a limit of polygons rendered, average, say, 0.7(x*y screen pixels)

what does it draw instead? the next, or the next after that, etc, depending on distance.