Polygon count for Charactors

[Wej]

What is the normal Polygon count for characters? I am sure just the head of my character is more then the whole body is supposed to be.:eek: :D

[Xritam]

i haven't done modeling in age's but i think poly count for characters is 200

[Wej]

200??? No, that can't be right. I read somewhere around 4000-8000, but i am just making sure before i make my character for my mod (and i am not sure if they were talking about half life 2). (The head i first made had about 9000 polygons!).

Up to speed decent video cards can render around 100,000 polygons on the screen (for an online game i think anyway), including characters, environments and all that stuff. The best can render more. So, i know optimization is important, cause if you have 32 characters on the screen at once on an online game, and they each have about 8000 polygons that is 256000 polygons with just characters, so that doesn't make since....

200 polygons may just be way to low...you can't really get any high depth and detail characters out of that. I know textures are what really makes the details, but, look at the half life 2 characters, they are very detailed without textures....more then 200 polygons. But i would like to know how much would be best

[Wej]

Found it! If you ment to say around 2000, i guess that might be right depending....

"We target between 3000 polygons (i.e.: headcrabs) and 7500 polygons (i.e. Alyx, the Gman) for characters and monsters, depending on function and how many we hope to have on-screen simultaneously, and we have several stages of LOD (level of detail) models with drastically reduced polygon counts for when things get smaller in screen space (further away).

We're targeting around 2000 polygons for our viewmodels (which of course do not LOD) including hands. Some current examples (final values are likely to be different)"

http://collective.valve-erc.com/index.php?faq=source_mod_faq&printable=yes#question1_3

[domsablos]

I did a sub 100poly model for a competition once, tricky to have a realistic looking model with that few polys and mine had wheels too >_<

[Sodabus]

The model viewer displays the polycount.

[Lord Ned]

Alyx is about 9k Tri/Faces. The compiler kinda cuts out around 30-40k though.

[project6]

We're using 7000 polys for one of our (giant) killer robots. Valve recomends staying around 4000, like their character models. It's usually enough unless you have something really large. (like us)

[Wej]

Ok, so I will aim for as low as possible, and will not go over 6K or so.

So far, after smoothing my head, i have about 288 (thats about half to 1/4 the face, so this head will be a lot better...hopefully...) I am aiming for 800 -1000 for the face...is that too much?

[Sodabus]

An example character model, with sources, is bundled with the SDK. Use that as a reference.

[Wej]

I would...but i am at school, and the stupid firewall blocks steam from accessing the .dll file, so i can't load steam or anything...i can once i get home, but still...

[Wej]

Shoot....so far...it will be more then 1000 for the head....well...once i am done with the character, depending on how close he is to 6k, over or less (hopefully less), and depending on how well he does in a game, then we can see if i need to optimize him...

Edit: I have a total of 332 polys on the nonsmoothed one, and 1324 polys on the smoothed one. I am fine with it that high, as the face is where people will look, and as long as i keep about 4.5K - 6K, i am relatively fine i think...

If the most detail is in the face and the hands (i will say 1000polys for the hands, but that is a complete guess, as i have no idea what it will get even close to) That leaves it (rounding up) at 2500 polys, and so then i have 2000 - 3500 polys for the body...which i don't think that will be enough....

Depending on where the detail is needed, i guess i could take some out of the face...but only once i get the model done will i know....

And now i am done with the chatter no one cares about :D.

Any suggestions or what your models poly counts that you created are?

[Wej]

K, i know this isn't much of a low poly...the glasses, the teeth (which are square) and the tounge, are all ready good. The head and eyes are the things that are needed to be smoothed.
Here is the low poly of the head:
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj173/Wej00/head_low_poly.jpg?t=1204076012

The high poly:
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj173/Wej00/head_high_poly.jpg?t=1204076402

Please yell at me and tell me what i did wrong. This is a computer nerd, with huge glasses, so he might look weird. He doesn't have textures or hair...so ya...

EDIT: And there are some things in the high poly that need to be done. Like the ears...