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Is decimating your model in environment art good or bad?

ModBlue
polycounter lvl 7
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ModBlue polycounter lvl 7
Let’s say you were creating a door asset for a game and you sculpted it. If you decimated it afterwards and managed to texture it just fine, would that be considered acceptable or would it be better to create a low poly version of the door with quads/tris?

I wonder this because things that aren’t going to be deformed due to animation such as a door, props, etc don’t seem to have much benefit in going the extra mile for quad retopology vs simply decimating it.

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  • zetheros
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    zetheros ngon master
    every time I handed in a decimated model, whether it was grinding gear or bare mettle, they did NOT like it. I recommend not handing in decimated models outside of use as a reference for retopology purposes
  • HAWK12HT
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    HAWK12HT polycounter lvl 13
    Every mesh gets triangulated in engine at the end. Identify the use case, if its a nanite mesh then decimated mesh is absolutely fine given it is within acceptable tri budget and tri distribution and has proper uv. For non nanite workflow, yes you will still have to optimize the geometry properly to be acceptable however it does not have to be 100% quads if its not deforming. That manual optimization is for triangles to be at places where they need to be, such as areas that affect the silhouette of the mesh, no need for tris on flat areas. Problem with decimation is that it can end up giving tris on flat areas thus its a wasted geometry. Another issue with decimation is it gives small or long triangles that cause shading artifacts on normal maps and long thin triangles impact performance (tri overdraw) and culling. Hope this helps.     
  • poopipe
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    poopipe grand marshal polycounter

    In production you are not the last person who has to work with the model and textures you produce - handing over a shitty triangulated mess to a rigger, material artist or shader author is a crime worthy of capital punishment (maybe) 

    So.  Bad

    Except rocks, that's usually ok 
  • Sage
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    Sage polycounter lvl 20
    Depends on the studio.  If it makes it hard to texture, layout UVs or paint vertex colors it's pretty bad.
  • gnoop
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    gnoop sublime tool
    Speaking of those nanite meshes. Do people really make them for games now ? I mean like straight from zbrush sculpt  slightly decimated?  No normal maps?
     I never worked for Unreal  so I am curious ? Been under impression the whole nanite  thing is a sort of  engine showcase  rather than real in-game thing.
      When I model something  I usually do lod02 + normal map.  Then use decimate modifier for lod03 and lod04.   Modern decimate modifiers  tend to keep normals  and uv .     End then I just add a few extra edges /vertexes + floating geo for lod01.    Or just do lod01 as regular low poly model, not only  quads   and then decimate  to lod02.  Decimating modifiers are still big part of it.   Nothing wrong with them. 



  • HAWK12HT
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    HAWK12HT polycounter lvl 13
    gnoop said:
    Speaking of those nanite meshes. Do people really make them for games now ? I mean like straight from zbrush sculpt  slightly decimated?  No normal maps?
     I never worked for Unreal  so I am curious ? Been under impression the whole nanite  thing is a sort of  engine showcase  rather than real in-game thing.
      When I model something  I usually do lod02 + normal map.  Then use decimate modifier for lod03 and lod04.   Modern decimate modifiers  tend to keep normals  and uv .     End then I just add a few extra edges /vertexes + floating geo for lod01.    Or just do lod01 as regular low poly model, not only  quads   and then decimate  to lod02.  Decimating modifiers are still big part of it.   Nothing wrong with them. 



    I have shared some info on Nanite here. 

    https://polycount.com/discussion/236540/best-practices-when-creating-assets-specifically-for-nanite#latest
  • gnoop
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    gnoop sublime tool
    Thanks HAWK12HT  .  Good to know someone actually use nanite .   Wonder what recent games actually use nanite and lumen .  I am not sure I see them anywhere based on youtube videos  in my youtube bubble  .   Not much of a gamer myself for a few recent  years already.  
    All I see is a few cool demos  not actual games I think.      Star wars Outlaw day light environment looks great Imo , Is it Unreal?
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