Hello!
I would like to ask if 40.000 triangles are too much for a desktop game model or WIIU.
I think I have heard somewhere that a current AAA game (I don’t remember the name) used models of this size on a console (though I don’t remember the console name either… perhaps it was XBOX360?).
Thank you.
No it’s not. I routinely use larger models with no issues on PC. Can’t speak for WIIU though.
I don’t think it is ok. Depend on what is this model. 40k for a character is way to much. but for a car in a cars game, that may be ok-ish.
It depends on what it is used for. Polycounts aren’t nearly as much of a bottleneck as they used to be. Shader passes and texture calls are usually considered a more significant point of optimization these days. At the same time, you don’t want to be throwing a whole bunch of unnecessary polygons around if you don’t have to.
If those 40,000 polys are going into a unique model that isn’t going to be getting cloned all over the place, I’d say go ahead. If those 40,000 polys are for a tree model that you intend to paint a couple thousand times across a landscape, you might want to think about cutting down those numbers.
For character models these days, 40k is not considered unreasonable on desktop systems. (possibly even some mobiles, again, on a case-by-case basis) Those extra polygons can be used to smooth out areas that might otherwise look blocky, and assist with deformations around joints.
What’s the model of and for what kind of game?
40K polys is nothing for a modern day PC, times that by 10 and it’s still nothing. As Richard said, if you had 1000X 40K poly tree’s amongst the rest of your scene then you’re pushing your luck, I think the terrain alone for the demo I did was 1.5 Million polys and that ran 60+FPS no issues.
Try that on an old mobile, it would sink it but on a modern console it’s fine. So it depends on what you’re doing…
I forgot to mention that I am talking about a game character, not a tree. 
Well you should be fine then (for PC anyway), not sure about the WII U. I don’t deal with it…
Without giving any desktop specifications I’m going to assume it is a 10 year old desktop just for the sake of keeping it on par with the Wii U which is basically a GameCube after drinking some espresso.
In which case, yes, 40k polys for a character is too much and completely out scope for the project.
In the end I think it kinda comes down to how well optimized the game is in the end, and what kind of machine you plan on using to run the game. I think if you were to optimize models with distance (Whats actually noticeable) with view distance scripts or what is refered to as LOD (level of detail), then you would find that 40k polys up close would not be too much for any modern PC. As with anything though, it truely depends on the scenario in which your 40k poly model is being used, and what kind of load your engine is already under to determine the resulting performance. (Scripts, amount of models, lighting, shaders, other things that could impact game performance).
WII U, No clue.
Be careful with the tris/vertex amount. I have several models that show up as “13k” in the fbx but inside the game-window it has WAY more.
Also, if it’s only the localPlayer this is fine, but when you have the same model for remoteplayers this will fill up very quickly.
My Mesh shows in the preview window with 10k verts, 11k tris, 4 submeshes, but in an empty scene with only the model it got 24k tris + 70k verts … not sure what’s causing that.
UVs will often count as more in the total… each seam will be 2x the number of geometry vertices…
so, you try to make the fewest # of seams as possible… which can be difficult for certain things
Seems like 40k might be too much for the average humanoid - not because it’s a strain on the system, but because it could be optimised a few thousand polygons and still look as good. I think that should be the goal: Optimise it down until just before it starts looking crap
So is it just one character, or will you have many such characters?
The poly count of one model with no context isn’t of much use. You need to consider the poly count of the scene, and also what you’re doing with the polys.
The lesson here, is that context is king. Adjust your expectations for polycounts based on the different factors you’re dealing with. (complexity of the scene, most common camera angles, how many characters at a time, complexity of animations, etc…)
I come from the old-school. I started learning to model back when the common objective was to shave down every model to the bare minimum number of polygons possible. Back then, it was considered necessary to get every game character under 800 polygons each. Any more than that was pushing it. We would gut our models over and over, squeezing them for every iota of detail that we could get out of that minuscule geometry.
There are a lot of great techniques and principles that you learn from an exercise like that. The importance of silhouettes, optimization for animation, the ability to maximize detail through painting textures. I saw some fantastic art come out of those incredibly strict limitations.
These days, you don’t have to be nearly so conservative, especially when it comes to polygons. Most modern 3D processors are optimized specifically to handle an unholy number of polygons. Millions of polygons per scene aren’t considered that big a deal any more. For the average game character, 40k is fine, even on the Wii U. Just make sure you aren’t throwing a lot of unnecessary polygons around. Give it one more geometry pass to cull a few extra faces that aren’t really essential. No need to gut your model anymore, but why tempt fate when a quick pass can cut back a few thousand polys?
Well, I attempted to do some reading on it and while I couldn’t find some more concrete numbers I read some people mention that the Wii U cranks out about 250M polygons a second and the PS4 hits around 1.3B.
Those numbers could be WILDLY off since I could only find them in other forums. So if anyone could correct me with better sources please do.
Anyway, you also have to remember that your 40k poly model has to be drawn at least 30 times a second. so 30 x 40,000 = 1,200,000 polygons per second. Divide that into 250M and you get 208 copies of that model at 30 frames per second in ideal conditions on the Wii U.
That said, you’re not going to have ideal conditions. The temp and humidity won’t be ideal. The system will have wear and tear on it. Whatever.
Also, you have to remember that the vast majority of PC gamers have rigs as much as 10 years old (despite the loud minority). I think better to err on the side of caution and aim for around 150M polygons if you’re looking at a low budget title. But that’s just me.
Now if you’re looking to do a gussy’d up graphics monster of a game, then yeah, shoot for a billion.
At any rate it really boils down to what that character is doing. A game like Street Fighter 4 you could easily do 40k. While a game like Total War, not so much.
Context really is everything.
And like Orb said, optimize.
Build a prototype and simply try out. There is no other way to find out if the poly count is too high for your current project. Because poly count is ways not the only factor. It’s in fact one of the smallest factors. Modern desktop graphics cards deals with the pure mesh data in an eyeblink, even in megapoly range. What eats most computing time is lighting, shaders, game code and physics.
So simply try out. Every game is unique here.
This assumes though that your modeling skills are good enough to create just the needed geometry. Means that your mesh is not blown up by not needed loops and faces, and has a clean topology.
An image to judge could help here
Depend on the how many polygon you plan to use for the rest and which shader you use.
40K polygons is not much even for the lousiest cheap mobile phone now, but if the shader has dynamic lights these polygons are rendered per each light.
Like it was said, it’s not that it’s too much but that it’s not needed. Even at 20K you have a very detailed model, and you can use these saved polygons elsewhere.
Thanks to all of you!