Polygons & Triangles & Performance

When they count "polygons", they are counting triangles...

-me

I see... 3d studio max says i have 1512 polygons & 3030 triangles.. that is th exact figure.. I have too many triangles then yes?

Quote:

Original post by luzarius I have too many triangles then yes?

Entirely unclear. Upper limits on tri-count vary widely between different engines and game types. Yes, in GW the poly-count is low but that's because it's an MMO and you need the capacity to render hundreds of people simultaneously. For something like Gears of War (or any other contemporary shooter) the tri-count is probably very low.

Basically, tri-count is something worked out between artists and designers for a specific game.

You're definitely in the right ballpark.

-me

Quote:

Original post by Palidine Quote: Original post by luzarius I have too many triangles then yes? Entirely unclear. Upper limits on tri-count vary widely between different engines and game types. Yes, in GW the poly-count is low but that's because it's an MMO and you need the capacity to render hundreds of people simultaneously. For something like Gears of War (or any other contemporary shooter) the tri-count is probably very low.

don't you mean very high?
and when an artist is refering to polycoutn they are usually refering to tris, however when they're refering to polygons... they (should) mean polygons. to a game engine only tris exist, all polygons (aka quads, 4 sided-hence "quad") are split into triangles and then rendered. when modeling i've heard its more effecient for an engine if the model is composed on mainly tris, however polygons have their uses too. if you're subdividing a mesh you'll want mainly (if not all) polygons so you can get those polygons subdivided into more polygons, usually this produces a much cleaner and easier to work with sub-d model. as for, "is this a good plycount"? only you cna answer this. answering this question one needs to consider:
1.)target platform- nintendo ds, psp, pc...?
2.)target audience- if for pc, what is your audience? what kind of hardware will they generally have?
3.) engine- what type of game engine do you have? what technology does it have to deal with polycounts (portal based? LOD?).
4.) game- is your game out doors or indoors? is the emphasis on environments or characters? how many characters can there be in one section? on screen at once?
...etc

hopefully thsi helps you.

p.s. if any of this information is extemely wrong its because i just woke up froma very deep sleeping nap and am still kind of out of it