Haha hello, the bar is higher!

[cyborgguineapig]

Lol, I keep laughing an some of these peeps models going by HL1 standards. Hello people, the average poly count can be like tripled now and everyone always forgets about LOD(level of Detail).

If you wanted you could make an 8000 poly gun model, it really dont matter because LOD takes care of performance.

No more cube humans!

 

[Xtasy0]

Originally posted by cyborgguineapig
Lol, I keep laughing an some of these peeps models going by HL1 standards. Hello people, the average poly count can be like tripled now and everyone always forgets about LOD(level of Detail).

If you wanted you could make an 8000 poly gun model, it really dont matter because LOD takes care of performance.

No more cube humans!

gun models arent affected by LOD.

 

[Draklyne]

cyborguineapig...
You're not Guinny are you?

I agree on people being conservative. It wouldn't hurt to put more polys in your models if you're unsure.

 

[Grey]

Perhaps we shouldn't feed the trolls .

Xtasy0 is right, Valve has stated in the sdk faq that the viewmodel poly count they shot for is 2000 as there is no LOD for that model. Also, why go above 2000 for the poly count of the weapon models for external models, when you can use the same ~2000 poly model for both.

I should take my own advice.

 

[Submerge]

ok, weapons dont use LOD?

but cars, humans, building, etc. do?

 

[Grey]

Originally posted by Submerge
ok, weapons dont use LOD?

but cars, humans, building, etc. do?

Well the weapon/model for the 1st person viewpoint doesn't LOD. Everything else will.

 

[Radeon]

I hope u can turn of LOD.

 

[Grey]

I think even a monster of a machine would choke then. You shouldn't notice LOD if it's done right. I.e. when a object is using a lower LOD it'll be too small to tell.

 

[Xtasy0]

Originally posted by Radeon
I hope u can turn of LOD.

you can turn it off.

 

[Sirius]

As someone said earlier, first person view models won't have LOD. The gun will never be further from the player, so there's no need for LOD. With vehicles, player models, etc, they will be various distances from a players POV. The further away the lower poly they can be, since you won't be able to tell a difference.

My question is how smooth the transfer from one set of models to another. Say you're 500 yds from a player or vehicle and it's using the lowest level of detail. Then you move in to within 100 yds and it's on the highest level of detail. How much of the transition will you notice?

 

[Stone]

there would be a point in LOD models for weapons in first person... so that the game, can compensate fully by changing the weapon model to lesser quality to allow to run on slower computer :cheese: , although it's probably not be implemented

and you shouldn't notice the transformation at all

 

[EVIL]

Originally posted by Grey
Well the weapon/model for the 1st person viewpoint doesn't LOD. Everything else will.

wrong.. first person weapons are also affected. because lod is used for the scalabillity of the spengine. low end wil use lod to scaledown every model en highend can use the full reso models

there yah go.. bb

 

[HiroProtaganist]

if they do it like bf42 then LOD will not the players weopon model in first person however it will affect all the others. It more useful however for buidlings and vehicles and it's actually a fairl neat affect for building bcaus eit adds a sense of depth to you FOV.

 

[Grey]

Originally posted by EVIL
wrong.. first person weapons are also affected. because lod is used for the scalabillity of the spengine. low end wil use lod to scaledown every model en highend can use the full reso models

there yah go.. bb

Evil check your facts before you say some one is wrong. Here's a direct qoute from the SDK FAQ:

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.

So I'd have to say your wrong Evil .

Here's a link to the FAQ so you can read the full thing, old news that you must of missed.

http://collective.valve-erc.com/index.php?go=source_mod_faq

 

[derby]

Evil, I believe you have been 'Owned'.

I think people got overexcited with this new scalable engine and imagined the feature that alters LOD when framerates start to drop. It it most likely entirely distance based. So no LOD for the weapon model. Guess this rules out go-go-gadget arms as a new HEV feature.

Oh and don't forget about memory/cpu usage. Don't make a 50,000 poly model and rely on LOD. How long do you think it will take the CPU to scale it down?!

My guess is it's better to stick to the polycounts Valve have used. They probably know more about the quality/performance tradeoffs than anyone here (none of whom have played the game!).

 

[Rabid Llama]

Originally posted by derby
Evil, I believe you have been 'Owned'.

I think people got overexcited with this new scalable engine and imagined the feature that alters LOD when framerates start to drop. It it most likely entirely distance based. So no LOD for the weapon model. Guess this rules out go-go-gadget arms as a new HEV feature.

Oh and don't forget about memory/cpu usage. Don't make a 50,000 poly model and rely on LOD. How long do you think it will take the CPU to scale it down?!

My guess is it's better to stick to the polycounts Valve have used. They probably know more about the quality/performance tradeoffs than anyone here (none of whom have played the game!).

I'm fairly sure I read something said by Gabe that the engine targeted 60 FPS at all times, and altered the LOD accordingly, so yes, I think it IS framerate based. However, your point's still valid -- no need to make a model that FORCES the engine to shift down a gear or two whenever it's on screen.