Weapon: Knife

[Tork]

is 1,000 polygons for a knife too much ? how much would you say the poly should be on this knife? thanks

 

[Murray_H]

That sure is one sweet looking knife!

The handle seems very rounded, remember that most of the handle will be covered by the hand gripping it. But the rounded effect could be because of smoothing groups, if so don't listen to me

Post a wire-frame so people can see where wasteage is. I really like it

 

[Tork]

forgot about that thanks. well here it is lol. ill lower the poly count on the handle.

 

[Murray_H]

Is the actual blade flat, cos if it is you can do a shed load of optimisation on it

 

[Mr. Coffee]

is 1,000 polygons for a knife too much?

It depends. The polygon budget for viewmodels is around 2000, including both the weapon and the hand model. Since the complexity of the hand model can vary, there is no real solid polygon budget for just the weapon.

how much would you say the poly should be on this knife? thanks

Personally I'd aim for around 250 - 500. Its tempting to max out your polygon budget every time, but one should only use as many polygons as are needed.

 

[IchI]

nice knife. You are getting good tork

 

[Razor]

The first render with the camo handle looks exceptional, the blade does look dull though. It looks as if you have done a meshsmooth on the whole body, doing it on the handle would be fine but the blade would mostly be flat.

 

[random.hero]

waaaay too many polies for such a clean blade.

i was expecting a huge ass knife, rambo style with loads of jaggedy bits and stuff, possibly modeled badly, but no. this one has too many polies in the straight part of the blade, where theres is no need for so many, and that 2000 polycount is for weapons like MP5s and the limit was 2500 for larger ones, i think for a knife you can make one like that for quite a low count, 500ish maybe less. not sure, ive never really tried a knife.

*edit* Mr. Coffee, are you sure that count is with the hands as well, someone told me it wasnt, im not sure, ive looked all over, but never really found anything.

 

[HiroProtaganist]

the knife looks good though the bade has way too many poly's. using correct smoothing you should be able to make the blade about 6-10 polygons max.

as for the poly limits. from what i've read regarding hand models they are going to use a sytem similar to BF where the the arms and hands are part of the player mesh. so the 2500 is just for the gun. aslo bear in mind that bf supposedly had a 1000 poly limit for weapons and a 10000 poly limits for vehicles. but dawdler (from these forums posted screen captures of a 47000 polygon Star Destroyer in game and it worked fine. so there isn't really going to be a poly limit to speak of. It's more along the lines of your target audience. if your targeting everyone then you'll have low poly models. If your just doing high end machines then poly counts don't matter.

 

[Tork]

Thanks for the comments , im trying my best to learn. Gnomon videos opened many doors for me.

here is a lower poly version. I could lower it even more.

 

[random.hero]

naaaaads !! look !!

-----Original Message-----
From: the random.hero [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 10:40 AM
To: SDk
Subject: 'viewmodels' confusion

hello, in the FAQ, you say...

'We're targeting around 2000 polygons for our viewmodels, which of
course do not LOD.'

talking to some people, they claim that this count is with the hand
models included, and then there are others who say that that is purely
for the weapon alone. could you please clear this up for me and the sake
of my brain ?

thank you

-----Reply-----

When we quote poly count on view models, it includes the hands.

Rick
Valve


uggg, this means that all our models are supposed to be 2000 including the hands. feck !! that means i better get optimising, cause most of my weapons alone are aimed for 2000. not good, not good. i know many of the models Chaos Ops have made, are over 3000, hehe, god they're screwed.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

Mr. Coffee, are you sure that count is with the hands as well, someone told me it wasnt, im not sure, ive looked all over, but never really found anything.

From the Souce FAQ.

"We're targeting around 2000 polygons for our viewmodels (which of course do not LOD) including hands. Some current examples (final values are likely to be different):

v_crossbow.mdl: 592
v_smg2.mdl: 2854
v_smg2.mdl: 1851
v_bugbait: 1958
v_rocketlauncher: 1791
v_physics: 2298
v_shotgun: 1925"

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

from what i've read regarding hand models they are going to use a sytem similar to BF where the the arms and hands are part of the player mesh.

Where did you hear this? From what I've gathered Valve is using the same system from HL1 where the hands and forearm are contained in the viewmodel and are part of the mesh.

aslo bear in mind that bf supposedly had a 1000 poly limit for weapons and a 10000 poly limits for vehicles. but dawdler (from these forums posted screen captures of a 47000 polygon Star Destroyer in game and it worked fine. so there isn't really going to be a poly limit to speak of.

There is no polygon limit in the sense of Source rejecting a model for being too complex (within reason). Polygon limits are simply guidelines used by artists to ensure proper polygon distribution across the gaming environment.

In your example, the BF engine could handle the Star Destroyer in the same way it can handle five 10,000 polygon vehicles. At the end of the day it simply comes down to the total number of polygons on the screen.

It's more along the lines of your target audience. if your targeting everyone then you'll have low poly models. If your just doing high end machines then poly counts don't matter.

That’s the beauty of LOD; if the system can't handle the polycount, then it simply falls back on a less complex model. This allows game designers to target the entire spectrum of systems without having to compromise the quality or their game.

Some models, however, do not LOD (the viewmodel for instance) so you must stick with preset polygon limits.

uggg, this means that all our models are supposed to be 2000 including the hands. feck !! that means i better get optimising, cause most of my weapons alone are aimed for 2000. not good, not good. i know many of the models Chaos Ops have made, are over 3000, hehe, god they're screwed.

Don’t worry; Source is not going to explode if your models are a little “heavy”. After all, some of Valve’s models approach 2900 polygons. You simply have to decide if the loss in terrain and player detail is worth the extra polygons.

 

[OCybrManO]

The only way to cut down the polycount on the handle is to sacrifice detail (like the number of segments or sides).

Here's a way to optimize the blade without changing the appearance:

 

[Tork]

hey thanks , i see what you're saying.

 

[ankalar]

using correct smoothing you should be able to make the blade about 6-10 polygons max.

Note: A simple box is 12 polygons.

It looks like you are patch modelling, Tork, am I correct?

If the HL2 engine cannot handle 3000+ polygon weapon models, I will be disappointed in that the HL1 engine is able handle more.

 

[random.hero]

ok, i get yer, thanks for clearing it up. i have little knowledge of how games actually work, and what effects the speed at which it runs.

 

[OCybrManO]

"is able to handle" is different than the recommended polycount. You could just as easily make a 50,000 polygon gun model for the first person view but they don't recommend it because it would cause a performance hit. HL had a recommended polycount for player models of 800 if I remember correctly... but people can now use two or three (or even more) times that number without taking much of a hit because the computers are faster. If your mod won't come out for a year or two 3000-5000 poly weapon models might be the standard by then.

 

[HiroProtaganist]

my belief abotu teh bf style ame from the IRC with valve way back. it was one of th last questions asked but the answer made me think it did not include hands.

 

[Stormy]

ocymbrmano have u got any idear on the weapon model polly count for hl?? first person and 3d etc coz i wanna have a go at modeling one but i dont know the polly count

 

[Tork]

Note: A simple box is 12 polygons.

It looks like you are patch modelling, Tork, am I correct?

If the HL2 engine cannot handle 3000+ polygon weapon models, I will be disappointed in that the HL1 engine is able handle more.

i made a couple of curves and then lofted them and added a few isoparms and tweaked it. I used nurbs then converted it to poly. I think now i can make almost anything with nurbs, im still learning with polygons but i ordered Gnomon Poly DVD. I LOVE NURBS!!

here is my nurbs boat im working on.