I have a very low poly soldier for a 3d rts game. Polycount: 298. I'm looking to have around 1000 soldiers (clones of this character) in game, along with several hundred other units. Is that possible? I mean 1000 x 300 is "only" 300,000. Isn't that a lot for a low-end system? 000s of characters, very low poly. Yet overall count is too high. Must I lower my individual character polycount to maybe 100? [Edited by - D Shankar on July 31, 2006 8:20:04 AM]

A quick screenshot.

Depends on the engine you have and the optimizations. Also depends on how many are on screen at a time. You can have your thousands of units, but if only a few hundred are on the screen, those are the only ones drawn.

Play Rome: Total War.

I have had 10,000 soldiers onscreen at the same time, this has alot to do with the engine more than the art.

Highest LoD is about 600-700 polys, then 500, 400, 250, 150, then a sprite. You're going to have to figure out the technology before you figure out the art.

Alright thanks; then I'll have to wait on the programmers.

Just thought I might add a few more screens. I have to start a thread in the Announcement forums soon.



The top right image is a copy but with a meshsmooth smoothing value of .5 - just to give it a "dead" look.

The other, regular (alive) artillery has a meshsmooth smoothing value of only .05 because I didn't feel it needed more.

Just a few comments on the gun and the character.
The character looks somewhat out of proportion, with too thick legs and belly, lacking hands and face. For the 300 poly's that's in there, there's relatively little shape defined. For example, this soldier I did a while ago has 250 poly's (excluding the weapon) - it's not perfect, but uses the poly's more efficient methinks.

The artillery looks like it can fall over at any time. The back end needs to be extended, if only to make it feel right. Plus, artillery usually contains springs and other stuff. Take a look at some reference pictures and add some typical shapes to help define the model better.
Also, I'm not familiar with this meshsmooth option, but it looks like it affects the poly-count quite somewhat. If that's the case ,it might be better to manually model, or tweak, the destroyed version.

Otherwise, good start. Keep it up. :)

As for polycount limits, I don't think you can expect to have 1000 units visible at one time on lower end systems if you're not using sprites, whatever lower end means in this situation. Indeed, you need to know the tech before creating in-game art, but it's possible you need to reconsider your design and scale down the number of units besides scaling down their polycounts. You may want to devote some time investigating what's possible - of course, when the tech is there to test with.

I think you could do more with that polycount in terms of shape. For ~300, you're getting very little out of it, no weapons, no gear, etc. Start slowly optimizing areas as you get closer to finishing that model and see if you can get it down to around 200 fully built out.

Thanks (ironically), lowpoly, and the same to you Cpt P.

I'm redoing both models. Still no programmers for my nonexistent engine, so basically I'm stuck doing art hoping to gets put to use in my 4E5 entry.