Quads VS Triangles Urgent!!!

JCH89

Hey guys,

I've been a given an art test for a games company because they liked my portfolio even though it didn't have any game res stuff in there just high poly stuff.

Anyway my question is that for one of the objects I'm modelling (3DS Max) I was given a quad limit of 1500 and when I modelled to this poly count using the polgon counter in Max and then added the UVW Unwrap modifier to it, it changed my polgon count from 1108 to 2178. When I then put an edit poly on top of this, the polgon count goes back down and keeps the texture on where it should be. However if I then triangulate this mesh the polgon count goes back up to 2178.

I've tried searching for answers but couldn't really find anything useful, could someone please offer me some insight into this please, it would be seriously appreciated. (I now have two models, a lower poly version and the original one, but I don't know which one I can use haha).

PolyHertz

Are you sure the 1500 was a 'quad' limit, and not a tri limit or vertex limit? There is no reason to ever count quads. Game engines only work in triangles, unless they're making games for the Sega Saturn...

JCH89

Yeah it definitely said quads, I thought it was odd as well

PolyHertz

I'd contact them to double check.
As for the Max counter, it can't actually count quads, only polygons, which can have any number of sides. My assumption is the UVW Modifier is making Maxs counter treat all polys as tris.

monster

[edit: Ha, started the post, and didn't finish it until later. Just listen to Polyhertz.]
Couple things...

The polygon count changes with unwrap because the Unwrap Modifier is causing the counter to see it as a Mesh (triangles) object not as a Poly object (n-gons). No big deal. Just use the count when in Editable Poly mode.

BUT

Email those dudes and verify they wanted a quad count and not a triangle count. Typically it's the triangle count that matters. 

JCH89

Yeah I'll send them an email to double check, luckily it only affects two-ish of the assets I've made and one is already optimised just in case.

Thanks for the replies guy, has helped a lot