Looking for info on tri counts for modern environments (yes, I know it depends) :)

Darkmatterx76

I did some searching before making this post but I found that most of the info on poly or tri counts is for characters.

Since tri count limits vary a lot depending on what your doing and what its for I guess I should give some info.

I'm working on a portfolio to hopefully get a job in the game industry as an environmental artist. (Yes, I actually want to work on environments, not characters)

What I am working on is a destroyed city street section (long after "the end of the world" type thing) and I'm targeting it toward current/next gen numbers.

Thanks for any info!

Mark Dygert

How many polys in a piece of string...

I think you'll need to narrow it down more then that. FPS, RTS, MMO?

How close is the player allowed to get to the objects you intend to make?

By "next gen" do you actually mean the current generation of consoles that have been around for 3+ years? Or are you shooting for PS4 and the xbox 180?

It might be better to think about creating assets for a particular game and shoot for that. Your research would start with either by breaking the game down or playing and examining it very closely. Check out contests rules, we have one going on right now those rules easily apply to what you're doing.

It will be hard to get exact numbers because a building can be as low as 16 tris and as many as 2 mill.

Darkmatterx76

How many polys in a piece of string...

1

a plane with a texture and an alpha map.


Alright alright, you want more info, I'm ok with that.

I would say I am shooting for something more along the lines of a FPS look. I plan on rendering this scene out once its done with a camera fly through so I'm not concerned with "players" being able to walk up to stuff. That being said, I do plan to make it an enclosed area so that I can place it into UE and walk through it but this won't be part of my main portfolio. I'll probably keep that for any company that wants to talk to me about my work.

I am going for something that could maybe fit in this gen but I don't mind pushing it a bit into the next gen. If this sounds a bit general its on purpose. I am not going to be limiting my search for a job to only companies that make 1 particular type of game. I have no idea what type of project I may end up on.

I guess I should give a bit more info on me.

I did go to college where I took several programs including a post grad in Gaming which focused on game art. The whole college experience included traditional art, Photoshop, 3DS Max (some high poly, mostly lower), Unwraping, Texturing and Unreal Editor.

Thanks

IronHawk

fail

... a plane is 2

Darkmatterx76

IronHawk wrote: »

fail

... a plane is 2

I said 1 polygon, not 1 tri.

you fail.

Sage

polys mean tris for most people that work in games.... and the more efficent thing to do would be to use two triangles to make rope do to how much space one triangle would take of the texture page. I would do what Vig said, and make several examples of the different tech if you want. Another option would be to look at what artist on this site are doing, and try to make things with those restrictions. You might be better off just entering the environment facade contest going on right now. Show what you can do and ask for feedback.

Alex

IronHawk

polycount = tri count man.

Current challenge would be a good starting place.

Keg

Ironhawk: no, polycount means the numbers of polies which can be n-sided or if you prefer triangles, quads, and more.

IronHawk

Keg wrote: »

Ironhawk: no, polycount means the numbers of polies which can be n-sided or if you prefer triangles, quads, and more.

true a quad is a poly but when referring to polycount in the general sense its usually tri's. Yes a polygon can be different things obviously. Though these days i suppose you should just say tri's. Once again though the current comp is a good place to start.

TSM

What if the string is in a knot?

The answer is subjective, there is no cake.

Darkmatterx76

Ok let me ask this.

Does anyone know how many tri's (aprox) are in one of the above ground "destroyed city" levels of Gears of War?

Kawe

here's how.
buy the game. open the editor and check it out if you want exact numbers. emphasis on buying. I actually have two gears of war since I wanted an editor to check it out.. but my computer is too crappy so I have to play it on my xbox. poor me

anyhow.. if you don't feel like doing that. take a screenshot and try to imagine where you think the polys could be.

I've been asking myself the same question but it's really all about researching it. personally I think this whole polycount business is way overblown. I was at school watching some guys working on a project and this person sat there for 30mins trying to decide whether he should remove or keep a tri.... and oh it wouldn't even have made a big difference cause the character was supposed to be viewed from far away.

Darkmatterx76

I considered buying the game but like you, I already own it for the 360. Then again it wouldn't be the first game I've bought to check out the editor.

Of course money is rather tight atm since OSAP wants to break my knees so if anyone reads this and could give me a number it would give me a little more leeway to go buy the game when I have some free cash instead of just having to do without.

Maybe I could look for the editor in my 360 version....

Thanks

Rick Stirling

It's not only how many polygons are in the level that you want to know - it's how many are on screen at once. In the older days we'd put a corridor between two rooms so that we could have more detail in each room and not have to worry about open doorways where you'd need to draw the contents of the other room.

These days the actual polygon count isn't as significant as it used to be, and textures/shaders are more important. Engines can throw around vast number of unlit, untextured polygons, but once you start adding pixel shaders into the equation the time taken to calculate all those pixels and how they are affected by the lights in the scene rises dramatically.

Textures start to eat memory, so you'll start to use more generic tiling textures with overlays and multipass shaders (4 base textures + 4 overlays = 8 textures but 16 combinations).

...none of which answers your question.

Mark Dygert

What if the string is the only thing in the scene and your budget is 20mil tris?
What if there are no lights, is there really a piece of string?
Agreed, the cake is a lie...

Camera, player. Bah they're all the same thing.

For the 3rd time, check out the stats on the latest contest for numbers that will work really well for what you're doing. If you're low on cash (and not just a smart ass dead beat looking for a quick answer when he should be learning) trade in a few of those 360 titles, DVD's. Hell! Even trade your 360 and get a few games that come with an editor. Considering you should spend more time making your own content then playing it might be a good move if you're unable to regulate your own learning.

Word to the wise, if you're not good at teaching yourself, maybe you should find another teacher. Just be careful there are a lot of teachers willing to take your money and they aren't much better then the one you just fired.

Ott

Vig wrote: »

How many polys in a piece of string...

I think you'll need to narrow it down more then that. FPS, RTS, MMO?

How close is the player allowed to get to the objects you intend to make?

By "next gen" do you actually mean the current generation of consoles that have been around for 3+ years? Or are you shooting for PS4 and the xbox 180?

HAHAHA Vig that was awesome. I've decided to retire the term "Next-gen" from my vocabulary, and nothing sickens me more than people who still use it.

Oh, and it's the XBox 720!

sprunghunt

Here's a suggestion. Find out for yourself. Most moddable games have some kind of scene statistics availiable to the user which will tell you how many polygons are being displayed. Open up your favorite editor and have a look around a level that comes with the game.