Any info on the polycount for weapons/characters?

[Cerberus]

I'm working on a mod and its really important that I find out what the polycount is for the characters and weapons. I've looked through alot of FAQs but didn't see much, is there any avid fan that might be able to help me out? I've heard 5000 for the characters, no word on the weapons though....

 

[Hudson]

its about 3000 on a headcrab, 7500 on a character like the Gman. not sure about weapons

 

[Ridic]

Well as HL2 goes, the weapon models iv seen (for mods) should be no less than 3500 polys....i think LGW has weapons with 4000+ polys.

 

[Feath]

http://collective.valve-erc.com/ind...06159032409491000&question=106159098641972000

What is the polygon budget for models?

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.

http://collective.valve-erc.com/ind...06159032409491000&question=106159104561263100

What was the polycount on the driveable buggy?

Currently it's a bit heavy at around 12000 triangles. It will be reduced before the game is done.

 

[Stone]

Originally posted by Ridic
Well as HL2 goes, the weapon models iv seen (for mods) should be no less than 3500 polys....i think LGW has weapons with 4000+ polys.

hmm thats strange because Valves weapons are only 2000 polies....hmmm, strange....

/me wonders off saying strange, before wandering back....

 

[Hudson]

stone is strange.....LIKE A FOX!!!

/me laughs like a maniac before realising he is a pithetic excuse for a human being

 

[spin]

I am speaking in general, of course, but it really depends on the situation and audience you're aiming for. If you want everyone to be able to play the mod, you'll want to keep the polys close to Valve's numbers on weapons and characters. However, if you're doing a small mod that won't have much going on at once, you can probably use more polygons for the individual objects.

 

[babywax]

Minimum 3500? Who said that? Keep them as low as possible, always, it's a good habit and helps people with crumby comps Argh I can't find a wink smily...

 

[SilentKilla]

Originally posted by Stone
hmm thats strange because Valves weapons are only 2000 polies....hmmm, strange....

/me wonders off saying strange, before wandering back....

i was thinking the same, 4000 sounds a little high.

 

[IchI]

if u was starting a mod I would really expect u to know something about the hl2 engine. The polgon counts news is about 1 mounth old now. Dunno how u didn;t know that. Also the high count is about 8000 and the low count is about 2000. Depending on how far u are away from your model.

 

[Stone]

Originally posted by IchI
if you were starting a mod, I would really expect you to know something about the HL2 engine. The polgon counts news, is about 1 month old now, I Do not know how you didn't know that. Also the high count is about 8000 and the low count is about 2000. Depending on how far you are away from themodel.

really the low poly count, (the one depending how far away you are) is 1 poly.... (if its on the horizon that one would be)

oh and babywax the wink smily is ; ) (put them together without space)
like so

 

[Jaenos]

Um, itch, I think he was asking about mp polycounts, as Valve hasn't really said if the info they gave us was singleplayer or multiplayer; since there usually a difference.

Considering they were saying 7500 for main characters it's probably singleplayer since I don't see 30+ 7500 poly characters running around in a map.

 

[IchI]

hmmm, well I would have fort people would take advantage of the different distance rendering thingy. Like in planetside, but obviasly better. Running 10 7000 polgon models at once will laaaaaagggggg.

 

[HiroProtaganist]

the only thing i would add to this is realize that there is going to be 1st and 3rd person weapon models. Valve models are about 2000 polygons in first person so we can assume that 3rd is going to be much lower than that. Of course in BF42 the poly limit was thought to be 1500 at most for weapons but many DC and EOD models were higher and they worked fine on my POS computer. So it probably makes sense to do models at the low end first. then when we se what source is capable of up the polygons on models.

 

[random.hero]

no Hiro, i would think that they are going to try and keep all the models the same, so same model for 1st and 3rd person...i wud hope. sum1 shud ask Gabe hehe.

 

[Stone]

I tried to get some questions into the Gabe interview, but no-one ever listerns to poor little, Moderator, Stone ;(

 

[HiroProtaganist]

check the logs of the IRC chat. SideX asked him how the weapon models are set up. they (valve) said they were using 1st and third person models.

 

[spin]

Originally posted by random.hero
no Hiro, i would think that they are going to try and keep all the models the same, so same model for 1st and 3rd person...i wud hope. sum1 shud ask Gabe hehe.

It would be silly to use the same model for the 3rd person view. Doing so is a waste of system resources since the details will be hard to make out and will rarely be seen up close. However, it could be done effectively without taxing the system too much by having several LOD steps (which I assume they will).

 

[HiroProtaganist]

the weapon models won't be LOd'd (also in the IRC chat logs; or in the valve e-mail sticky, i can't remember) so we as modelers will have too make two meshes (maybe three another mesh for the guns laying on the ground as seen in hl1) the qestion that really need to be answered is will the arms be part of the 2000 polygon limit or not? i would imagine not since the arms can easily be 500-800 polygons.

 

[Jaenos]

I am absolutely new to low poly modeling and have a question.

When taking about the poly limit are they talking about quads or triangles? I have the unfortunate habit of calling quads, polygons and triangles, triangles.

 

[nostgard]

Just to clarify:
Polygon = closed shape with 3 or more sides
Quad(rilateral) = 4-sided polygon
Triangle = 3-sided polygon

Nearly all of the games you'll see (including HL2) use triangles for their model meshes. This is what they're referring to.

 

[Jaenos]

Thanks Nost.

I was thinking "3000-7000" polys(according to my term of it being a quad) is no big deal, but when it's 3000-7000 triangles, that's when it gets a bit tricky

 

[endorphin]

I wouldn't worry about going over 2000 with the weapon models, these will only be rendered once and adding another 2000-3000 polygons shouldn't cause more lag then another headcrab jumping around (and if one headcrab more or less causes troubles.. well.. thats a really big issue). I'd be more worried about player and 3rd view models (since an extra 1000 polys there could end up being an extra 10 000 polys if theres alot of players on screen).

And also, its stupid to say "It must be single player specs cus I can't see 30 x 7500 polymodels running around" since thats what LOD is for, I very much doubt you'll have more then 2-3 players close by, and the LOD probably cuts the polycount in half at relatively short distance (my guess is that at 5-10 meters tops the polycount will be half what it was close by).

I should start modelling again, would be interesting to see what one could do with 7500 polys, Im used to making playermodels with like 1000 polys

 

[dscowboy]

Originally posted by endorphin
I very much doubt you'll have more then 2-3 players close by

What? Everytime I start a round of CS or DoD there are about 10 character models in my immediate vicinity. If HL2 MP is going to allow >32 players (like 64), that could mean some games could start with 32 characters spawning in at the same place. Whatever the scene poly-budget it, it'll have to be able to handle a whole bunch of characters. 32 X 7,000 is 224,000 polys, just in characters on one team. That's WAY too much to run smoothly on anything but the latest generation of video cards.

 

[Jaenos]

exactly my point dscowboy.

 

[endorphin]

dscowboy, when I say close by, I mean face to face or almost face to face, chances are it will only be 7500 when his nose is poking out your eye.

 

[Stone]

this is going nowhere...

CLOSED