Polycount for game props
Hey everyone, wanted to ask you pro's out there what your take is on the proper amount of Tris that a object should contain for a game. I am trying to become as efficient as possible with my models and I wanted to ask what ideal polycount would be for the average game prop?, moreover what the min and max should be for you average gun, chair, desk, etc.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Replies
http://www.rsart.co.uk/2006/11/20/how-many-polygons-in-a-piece-of-string/
http://www.rsart.co.uk/2007/08/27/yes-but-how-many-polygons/
http://wiki.polycount.com/PolygonCount?action=show&redirect=Polygon+Count#Typical_Triangle_Counts
rule of thumb is use as many/few polys as you "need" to make it look awesome.
but more importantly only use one material/shader on your prop and that material shader should be used EVERYWHERE in your scene !
This is supppppppeerrrrrr dependent on engine and lighting model, for deferred shading this is more common.
However, for more traditional setups, you can use whatever type of shader per object you want, simply restricting to the minimum amount of shaders/chunks per mesh is what is important. If you've got 50 meshes in the scene, you're still making 50 draw calls, no matter if they are using the same shader or not.
Err, sorry I was being a smartass. The numbers depend on the complexity of scenes, projected target (console, mobile, high end PC ?), and the capability of the programmers to make it work well and the Artists understanding of what slows down and what speeds up performance, which can also vary by engine. You need to both experiment and communicate with people involved with the project before you can get a good number, and even that is subject to change during a project's timeframe as programmers and artists get more efficient in the engine.
Generally the Technical Artist(s) and Programmers need to decide on a number to keep artists form going off the deepend (we always want more poly's right?).With GPUs and even Smart Phones getting massivly more capable every year, the number will never be the same, it's subjective.
Or I could have just said. "It depends"
Doesnt Unreal group instanced meshes into the same draqcalls? or did i get that wrong.
I'm not sure on the specifics there, but this would only be helpful with instances, and isntances will always use the same shader, because they are instances. =P With unique meshes, you're always adding another draw call.
I've run into shader bloat issues from using the same shader for multiple material types. So it's not always a good idea to force yourself to use the same shader for every object in your scene/level. Fewer shaders are better though.
like everything it's a big "it depends"
EQ, could you elaborate on this a bit? We're thinking of getting a Unity Pro license (with deferred rendering). Is it best in that case to make an "uber shader", and just switch on the functions you need while filling the unneeded bits with dummy textures or values?