Help with super low poly modeling
Hi everyone! I've been modeling for a while, mostly in Maya, and have recently started working in mobile game modeling. I am having some trouble and would like to know if anyone has a general workflow for modeling super low poly models(100-300 tris)
I am currently working on this model and have 100 tris to do it in!
I am currently working on this model and have 100 tris to do it in!
Replies
In the case of that thing, make it segmented. Take advantage of alphas where you can. Texture on the slot on the side of the sphere. It's going to be pretty blocky no matter how you model it, but you should be able to make a passable model with some smart, efficient modelling.
With extruded tapered sides those sideshields are (6*4)+(2*2)=28 triangles per shield, 56 in total. That leaves only 44 triangles for the scope, sphere, antenna and that horizontal rod. There's a way if your engine supports double-sided faces but then (technically) it would go above 100 triangles again, or alphamaps but alpha is more expensive to render than a few dozen triangles. In short: this isn't really going to work unless you use tricks that cost more in performance than the few triangles you save.
I'd advise you to make a new concept, and focus on getting a design that's more possible within 100 triangles. (at least, I assume that is your concept?) Actually, how about this: if you can draw me a concept that you think you CAN make in 3D (without alpha or doublesided geo) - I will give you the model belonging to this silhouette:
(which, sadly, does use doublesided geo for the cross-shields)
I got an idea I'll try and see if it works if it does, pay me.
No seriously pay me.
j/k
I don't think my plan will work but It might.
Doing it now and see, then we can talk.
:poly124:
I'm getting the feeling of troll is trolling.:poly142:
only single-sided poly wings...add another 20 triangles to yer budget
and it's do-able.
I think the wings are like the hospital sign +
Fun.
Edit:
More triangles would be great though.
Edit2:
72, no form but coolness.:poly142:
68 tris
Well I figured since it was such a low tris count it would be viewed from a bird perspective, but I updated with a new one that's 68 tris. If he would tell us how this would be viewed it would be easier to help him.
100 tris, including double sided.
16 tris !
I had another go at it myself too, 2 verts:
Anyway, Jibberish - what did you end up with?
Forgot to post back on this: I ended up making it with 70 tris, and normal mapped it, which was still a pain. heres the geo, i have the textures lying around somewhere...
Download: http://www.team-blur-games.com/odium/thing_100polies.zip
Trouble is, the alpha testing and defom tube are likely more expensive than just using a few more tris, but both are certainly far, far, FAR more cheaper than using normal mapping. Normal mapping such a low poly asset is totally pointless anyway. I think whoever is your art lead, likely doesn't really "GET" this form of media.
Just nab this model and add a simple diffuse texture. No alphamapping, normalmapping or whatever tricks required. Heck you could even go totally retro and use only unlit vertex colors and it'd still look passable.
Can anybody give me some reference links to show to the directors? I'd like some evidence to support the claim that using a higher tri count will be more efficient than using normal maps.
PS1 0.36 mil tris/sec, PS3 1200 mil tris/sec (3333 times as much)
PS1 33mpix/sec, PS3 13200 mpix/sec (400 times as much)
N64 0.15 mil tris/sec, Wii 50 mil tris/sec (333 times as much)
N64 31mpix/sec, Wii 950 mpix/sec (30 times as much)
Xbox 117 mil tris/sec, 360 1500 mil tris/sec (12 times as much)
Xbox 1866 mpix/sec, 360 8000 mpix/sec (4 times as much)
(data from http://www.neeyik.info/consolespecs )
So every console family shows an order of magnitude of difference between the increase of triangle counts. That means that you can now use about 10 times more 'extra' triangles when compared to texels as you could fifteen years ago.
That's assuming we still made models the same way we did then: simple diffuse map, and MAYBE a specular map or alphamap (lets say an average of 2 textures per model). We don't. Any decent material nowadays uses a diffuse, spec and normal, with often an alpha or glow map (lets say an average of 4 textures). That doubles the difference. Triangle count is 20x less likely to be the bottle neck than textures are.
But wait! There's more! Order now and get an extra exponential increase! Adding twice the polygons will make something twice as heavy. Making the resolution of something twice as high means a texture 4 times as big (twice as wide, twice as tall) so that means for every time you double both your texture resolution and your polygon count, the bottleneck shifts more and more and more towards textures.
And as a last bit, a vertex location is still used pretty much the same as back then, but a shader instruction for a normalmap is more costly (calculate several angles together, multiply by lighting) than an instruction for a diffuse pixel (multiply color X lighting) and this will undoubtedly make texels yet more costly - though I have no idea how much and am afraid to hang a number on it.
Some pullquotes/links from other places.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50588 :
http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php?title=General_Performance_Tips :
This pertains to the amount of objects in the draw call vs the amount of triangles per draw call. http://www.derivative.ca/wiki/index.php?title=Optimize_Geometry_for_Rendering#Geometry_Batches : in other words, 10 objects of 1 tree cost more time to process than if you were to merge them into 1 object of 10 trees.
edit: this is all based on console/PC hardware, but similar trends will be happening on mobile devices. After all, it's mostly about miniaturizing technology and reducing the power draw.