Poly count goals what are they??

[njanim8tor]

Hey guys,

When practicing modeling and texturing for current platforms, Xbox 360 & PS 3 what are acceptable poly limits. Let's say the categories are:

Weapons

Props

Characters

Right now I'm taking a game design course and the instructor has us building props with 20 poly limits and texture sizes of 64 X 64.

[tigger]

those specs would certainly not be for xbox360 or ps3, much more likely to be ds props, or perhaps smaller psp props.

polycounts and texture sizes can vary wildly between games, especially between genres, e.g an rts will have much smaller limits for a single unit than an fps will have for a baddy, or a third person shooter will have for the main character. Specs can also be surprisingly low sometimes, e.g in 3rd person games, because the character is only actually taking up quite a small proportion of the screen they have lower specs than you might expect.

[chris89]

Like tigger said, they vary wildly.
For example, Gears of war has character models with more than 10.000 poly's. And even small newspapers (yes 1 page) props that have 200 polys.
But other games like roboblitz (which uses the same engine as gears of war) has character models of only 2000 polys maximum, likely even less.

So it really depends on what type of game it is, and how much you need, and which engine you use it in.

You teacher must be from the stone age, or doesn't know how to make modern day game-art :O those limits are extreme.

[glynnsmith]

Check it. Word.

[Chewy Gumball]

He could also be trying to force you to make the most of what you have instead of needlessly wasting polygons.

[njanim8tor]

Hey guys,

Thanks so much for the replies. Glynn, great article and website, thanks. I don't really get this teacher. He also has us creating texture sheets @ 64 X 64 px and 256 X 256.

[fonfa]

Originally Posted by chris89

You teacher must be from the stone age, or doesn't know how to make modern day game-art :O those limits are extreme.

DS? and the teacher probably has a purpose on doing this, it's not as he's been in a cave for 10 years.

[Rick Stirling]

Your teacher probably knows more than you do. I have a friend who teaches a game art course, and every year the students complain about his harsh specs "That's not what people use in the games industry!" they cry.

It is.

He is probably trying to smack you around the head to make you think "Hmm...if I collapsed this vert and mirrored these UVs then....ah...and then...."

You need to remember that even though next gen consoles are powerful, their goal is not simply to display your artwork...and thus I present another of my rants:


Art for Games, not games for art.

[doylle]

Even if the specs aren't curent gen, making a big building with fancy texture is probably not the idea behind this assignment. Watching your polycount, and texture usage is very importent, even for next gen games. One should always try to fill his texture sheet as much as possible, try to use every single pixel. and with an assignment like you got there that's probably what you'll have to do

[Craig Lewis]

I think the purpose of the exercise is to try and be efficient at at using texture space, etc.

When I was working on a PS2 game, and at first i found it a struggle to work with 64, 128 and 256 size textures, but it was good practice to try and fit as much detail as possible in the minimal texture space you have.

Because it's easy to use a 1024 x 1024 texture as you have plenty of room to work. The real skill is is trying to create a just as good texture in a smaller space. It all depends on what it is you're texturing as well, if it's not important to the game, or is just a small generic item, etc, you could probably use a smaller texture than you would do for say a weapon of a bigger scene prop.