character resolution

[andrewc]

I have been looking into character development for games and noticed that game characters are still fairly low resolution. I am assuming this is partly because there are many characters in a scene at a time like in a FPS. With Unity’s good smooth skinning support can anyone give me a sense of how hi-rez I may be able to get if I only plan to have one or two characters in a scene at a time. I think I heard 7000 faces was typical. Is going beyond that a reasonable goal. I am asking because I figure someone may have some experience and I don’t want to make too hi-rez a character and not be able to use it.

Thank

[anon_85768832]

There are no hard and fast limits here other than having a maximum of approximately 65k polys per mesh. You’ll ultimately have to test with your models and your content to know what will, or won’t work in your case. What size of textures are you using? What else is going on in your content? What’s your target hardware? Etc.

Keeping the counts down as much as possible saves cycles for other “work”, thus most folks tend towards the lower end to make sure they’re content runs well on as many machines as possible. Where you go is up to you.

[anon_33080953]

10k is the maximum recommended limit.

[antenna-tree]

@""

10k is the maximum recommended limit.

Where is this “limit” recommended?

[anon_33080953]

@aNTeNNa trEE

@""

10k is the maximum recommended limit.

Where is this “limit” recommended?

In most game/mod development. But it really depends on game. If you got not a lot of characters on screen, you can go over the limit, but 10k is something that you shouldn’t overcome if you don’t need crazy detail, since bumps can do most detail work.

[antenna-tree]

Ok, just wanted to make sure that wasn’t stated in our documentation anywhere as there isn’t any hard limit for a Skinned Mesh.

[anon_33080953]

There was actually unity limit of 50k or so per mesh, but that is more than enough.

[antenna-tree]

That’s an OpenGL limit and it’s 65k.

[anon_33080953]

Okay, thanks.
Ripped Rorshack model from Watchmen game, it is 6400 polies, so yeah.

[spacefrog]

@aNTeNNa trEE

That’s an OpenGL limit and it’s 65k.

i somehow cannot believe this - are you sure that this is an OGL limit? Why should it be ?

[anon_33080953]

I kinda think too OGL has no limit, since it can render high poly meshes and all that stuff
Augh, I am confused

[QFS]

@""

you shouldn’t overcome if you don’t need crazy detail, since bumps can do most detail work.

The question is which is better, performance wise?

For example if you have a 10K poly model (with no bump/normal map and uses no pixel lights to achieve the desired look) or having a 3K to 5K model (with bump/normal and has 2 to 3 nearby pixel lights affecting it, to achieve the desired look).

[anon_33080953]

@""

The question is which is better, performance wise?

For example if you have a 10K poly model (with no bump/normal map and uses no pixel lights to achieve the desired look) or having a 3K to 5K model (with bump/normal and has 2 to 3 nearby pixel lights affecting it, to achieve the desired look).

Low poly mesh with bumps is less costy. Especially in scenes with large amount of models. You can have more/less bumps, but it won’t affect much performance, but if you add more/less polies, performance will change a lot. Pretty much every next gen game uses bumps now.

[anon_74970857]

@""

@""

The question is which is better, performance wise?

For example if you have a 10K poly model (with no bump/normal map and uses no pixel lights to achieve the desired look) or having a 3K to 5K model (with bump/normal and has 2 to 3 nearby pixel lights affecting it, to achieve the desired look).

Low poly mesh with bumps is less costy. Especially in scenes with large amount of models. You can have more/less bumps, but it won’t affect much performance, but if you add more/less polies, performance will change a lot. Pretty much every next gen game uses bumps now.

Though I do believe that QFS did mention something about pixel lights being attached to the character. You might need that to get your bump maps to look how you want them to.

[profcwalker]

Hi,

I don’t want to add too much to what has already been said above, however I am happy to provide some numbers from games that have shipped in the past. I hope this helps.

Gears of War, Xbox 360, 2006
Wretch - 10,000 polygons with diffuse, specular and normal maps
Boomer - 11,000 polygons with diffuse, specular and normal maps
Marcus - 15,000 polygons with diffuse, specular and normal maps
GTA San Andreas, PS2, 2004
Characters - 2,000 polygons with 1 256×256 8bit texture
NPCs - 1,200 polygons with 1 256×128 8bit texture
Halflife 2, PC, 2004
Alyx Vance - 8323 polygons
Barney - 5922 polygons
Combine Soldier - 4682 polygons
Buggy (without mounted gun) - 5824 polygons
Classic Headcrab - 1690 polygons
SMG - 2854 polygons (with arms)
Pistol - 2268 polygons (with arms)
Halo, Xbox, 2001
Masterchief - 2,000 polygons
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Gamecube, 2005
Snake - 4,000 polygons
Project Gotham Racing 2, Xbox, 2003
Vehicles - 10,000 polygons
Project Gotham Racing 3, Xbox 360, 2006
Vehicles - 80,000-100,000 polygons
Quake, PC, 1996
200 polygons
Quake 4, PC, 2006
Player model - 2,500 polygons
Resident Evil 4, Gamecube, 2005
Leon - 10,000 polygons
Unreal Tournament, PC, 1999
Player model - 800 polygons
Unreal Tournament 2k3, PC, 2003
Player model - 3,000 polygons