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Polygon count for smartphone applications

kay-vonlanthen
polycounter lvl 7
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kay-vonlanthen polycounter lvl 7
Hi guys

Im working on a smartphone app with a bunch of people and im creating low poly characters for the app. I have no idea how high the polygon count should be. Those 2 characters are the only 3D meshes in the app. The rest will be augmented reality.
I was doing a little research and also checked our forum for existing related topics. I have found out that it doesn`t really matter because there are too many factors involved.

I hope some of you have experience in that field and i would love to get a poly count that i can work with. My guess is max 6K? Does it depend on the phone? since every phone has different specs i guess.

Thanks in advance guys! greets kay
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  • .Wiki
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    .Wiki polycounter lvl 8
    6K per character sounds good. In a recent project I had to create some assets for an augmented reality app too. So the maximum polycount was 40.000 with unity 3D and the iPhone 4 as a minimum target. I can´t show anything of it right now because its not published, but I hope it gets released in a view weeks.

    We tested it and it ran smootly even with some particles in the scene and nearly 30.000 polys with multiple characters. Every object had a normal and diffuse map.

    The performance also depends on the number of deformers you use. I set my rig to the minimum amount of deformers, so one per vertual bone and not 3 or 4 like we would in our tv productions.
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  • Obscura
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    Obscura grand marshal polycounter
    Depends on the phone, yes. I worked on several mobile games, and a few of them has levels thats around 200-300k triangles, and the most of them are visible at the same time, and it worked good on the last Iphone. I think nothing wrong would happen if you would make the characters from even 15-20k, especially if not too much other 3d would be on the screen.
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  • Obscura
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    Obscura grand marshal polycounter
    Another example. I've talked with a guy who is working with a company that is making augmented reality apps. They make a lot of vehicles for these, and the usual triangle limit that they use is 25k for a car. So yeah, I think the 15-20k could work for your characters.
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  • kay-vonlanthen
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    kay-vonlanthen polycounter lvl 7
    hey thank you guys! most kind of you ^^ sorry for the late reply i thought polycount would send me an email if someone replies, but unfortunately i had to check back by myself.

    wow 25k :0 wow actually thats good so im not restricted by a polycount. our app will have only those 2 characters on the screen. they will appear sometimes and show people the way around. no particle effects at all : ) so im pretty happy about all this :p i was kinda worried to have like a limit of 4-5k cause its only a smartphone that doesnt really has a graphics card.

    i would love to see what you did .wiki. i will have pictures on my blogspot as soon as i have started working on them in maya :) just check my blogspot

    thanks again guys! really helped me out....
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  • poopipe
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    poopipe grand marshal polycounter
    Skinned and unskinned meshes are a very different prospect on an iphone4.

    Realistically you're looking more along rhe lines of 6-7k if you want them to be a decent size on screen, have a decent rig and nice shaders.
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