Low Poly is a waste of time and creativity.
I?m now running 10 x 40,000 poly figures fully animated and vertex blended at 20+fps on as low a spec as an Nvidia 5200 using directx. All with full game play character smarts, collision detection, gravity / physics effects (none of which effect graphics performance anyway much) and special effects, and networked with 4 co-players with a 150,000 poly scenery figure models with 1000x1000 plus textures and the background with 3000x3000 plus.
Keep in mind the Nvidia 5200 is 10 x slower than the 6800 and 20x + slower than the 7800, ps3 and xbox 360.
This means WHAT DOES LOW POLY MATTER!
It?s a waste of development effort and stifles creativity. Hasn?t anyone in this forum heard of MOORE?S LAW?
Admittedly it is my own code not some stupid inefficient engine. SKINNING ? what the heck is that where you want to get a chicken without skin? It?s soooo inefficient and over complex ? tip for the month use geometry blending 1 level only (any more may be inefficient and is unecessary anyway should apply vertex weights for smoothness) and animate materials using transform.world and joints transform.world1 ? I shouldn?t be telling you this secret you don?t deserve my love. It?s like the time when I was younger when I discovered how to unchain the 256 colour VGA mode 14 years ago to allow for paging in the only colour mode over 16 colours and shared it with everyone ? no thanks then and will get no thanks now just more gutter sniping from the inexperienced.
Tip - start designing larger models - low poly will mean nothing if the coders are any good in a couple of years. Although, that assumes good coders who don't have to rely on inefficient engines???
Sorry Malus,
but have you ever seen a 50k poly model in wireframe? It's just a white blur.
Anyway here it is. I've also given the hidden wireframe and the solid model.
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I see a lot of polys there, but for what reason I dont know like the arms and the legs there is no shape in the clothes like creases and folds, to me that is just a wast of polys I could get the same look well under 8,000 polys. but as the 3D side of things is not my strong point.thats just how I see it. it just looks like a wast of polys to me. I hope someone backs me up on this.
i agree with 3darty,
how can you possibly say that low-poly is a waste of time and creativity. first of all the amount of time that goes into the production of a high poly character is huge compared to lowpoly. why would you put time into producing an average model like yours with 50,000 (3darty was right about 75% of them appearing to be useless flat plains) polies when you could create a "low-poly" model of this calibre, albeit mayan escalante (one of the better military modellers around).
[img]http://media01.cgchannel.com/images/news/4191/mayan_00.jpg[/img]
or this by Ben Regimbal (its pretty bis so i didn't directly link it)
[url]http://www.planetquake.com/polycount/cottages/b1ll/champion_sp_2.jpg[/u…]
also, saying that it is a waste of creativity is also arguable, one of the reasons i enjoy doing lowpoly work to high is that there is a degree of creativity required to make quality models within a limit. that sort of problem solving is one of the bases of art. i understand you probably don't realise this because you're a programmer (i'll give you the benefit of the doubt on that one) rather than an artist which makes me wonder where you get the gall to tell people what creativity is.
also you still never answered one of my previous questions (though you seem to have a knack of glossing over things you can't answer, ever thought about a career in politics?) which 3darty re-asked. why were you aiming for 20fps in all your tests?
sorry 3DArty, can't back you up (entirely anyway). while i agree that in the model he posted the amount of tris add nothing to the definition of the model, and that they are indeed a waste of polys, that's irrelevant to the argument at hand, which is can the engine run this kind of detail? it's the amount of tris the enging is running that is important, not what they look like, that only matters artistically, not technically.
so once again: where are the demos of it running? where are the ingame screen shots? then we'll be impressed and want to crate 50000 poly characters that make use of the polies.
Two reasons why you have high poly
1. if I was a good modeller then I could create models like in
[url]http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/gearsofwar/screens.html?page=3
[/url]
[url]http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/gearsofwar/screens.html?page=1[/…]
Ripped off from HazardD post.
2. that medal of honour figure is static - even a 2d billboard can look better if it has a good texture (wolfenstein games forever eh?) - one reason for high poly is that games are dynamic i.e. parts move and if you have low poly the animation looks like cardboard sprites joined together. Imagine a coat that is smoothly blended or hair - I will give a demo of this type of thing in a few weeks.
Anyway, I should get the demo out by the end of Friday.
Conundrum-
Frame rates are what they are can be faster if your card is faster or you're showing less the idea is that you are performing at an optimal level for the card that's why I posted that technical stuff - just use the divide key on the calculator and type in the verts per second and see if the rate is somewhere near the manufactures spec. If you want I can explain the calculation. I will also give an ability to specify the number of figures and I will display the frame rate on the screen and the total screen polys and vertices(remember this is a windows game so I am ripping myself off by about 20-30% as I allow enough wait time to keep the process down around 50% CPU - I may also do an exclusive mode version which will perform faster) - if you have a faster card you can create more figures - background will be the same.
And Cunundrum - if new techniques and progress are not part of the art world why are we all (you graphic artists especially) doing digital art - why computer games at all - why not paint and canvas and why 3d graphics why not back to all 2d games? My experience is people all get stuck in the way they are used to working and won't move on but the world does.
PS don't run other graphics intensive programs at the same time.
you missed my point, i was disagreeing that lowpoly was a waste of time. if you had read a few posts down hazard makes the comment that epic are using "Roughly 3 - 4 artists and 6 - 8 weeks of time per character from concept to completion - add 2 weeks for some of the bigger creatures." Whereas a model like the medal of honour one which i concede is no where near pretty as the Gears of War characters but would have taken one artist a week. Most game developers cannot afford to spend that amount of time and money on a character and thus they can opt for a lowpoly option
I'm not saying that high poly work isn't creative i'm just saying that low-poly is too, i conceeded that it doesn't have the freedom of creativity found in high work but it has a different kind of creativity (stated above). Also, artists using mediums such as paint still far outweigh the number of digital artists in the world. Why? because every medium has it qualities and attributes.
regardless of it beign one character or not... lets say that this 50k poly model is a single snapshot of a certain area of an environment (that would collectively hold millions of polys if you explored the scene). So, can this engine you talk of smoothly (i'm assuming 60fps... its only 50k polys, Q3 handles that fine) handle this load when you have a shader that has at least 4 texture lookups per pixel and some kind of interactive GI solution (abient occlusion, SH/PRT) - and add a second light pass and a shadow pass (just so we have a fair game environment situation).
Just thrashin 50k polys doesn't mean anything at all. And can be argued to hell in terms of batching and primtive calls that the 50k polys will involve and how this particular program you've written (and the GPU you're using) decides to handle these things.
Vertex bottlenecks are seldom reached before fillrate bottlenecks are. I've worked on 700'000 poly scenes (realtime) running at <>15fps... here is when the vertex limit starts to chug (GF6800), but then again, you could argue the scene wasn't batched properly, there was no instancing or segment buffering to smoothly feed the GPU appropriate DP's.
So - what exactly is being claimed here?
Poser : Ill go back to the start and say, I haven't disagreed or said you what your touting is not achievable - its definately achievable - and comes as no great surprise to me.
The whole tact and point i was trying to make was - comparing what you say you have created and making comments similar to 'im not sure why other big name engines just arent pushing these polycounts' is really quite simple - they are building a product that has market feasability - its not a raw rendering engine - its an entire & complete package that can be sold to someone who can then interface with the tools and use them to create games from, and most of all can be improoved on over time.
Once again im not saying your product is void of this trait - but unless you are John Carmack, or Shawn Green - the only way your going to get anyone interested in what you claim - is not to claim anything at all and simply provide a working demo. Then let us artist squabble about creating content to try break it [:D]
quote:but have you ever seen a 50k poly model in wireframe? It's just a white blur.
Well gee, no I haven't... Of course I have, what a rediculous thing to ask:
quote:Anyway here it is. I've also given the hidden wireframe and the solid model.
LOL, yet its still not in any sort of engine.. [:P] The point I was trying to make is this.
You just need to show everyone a realtime demo of the highpoly character moving around your ingame environment, switch the texture off and display just the wireframe during this demo too prove that its highpoly...
Quite simple, it will be very obvious that your mesh is high poly if its animating in the ingame environment as a big, white, noisy ball of wires...
As an artist I for one will bow down before your godlike aura if you can prove you've cracked it, but until then I'm going to remain sceptical.
Having 400,000 polys moving around on the screen wont prove much to me running at 20 - 30 fps. I can do that myself.
Its when you combine said models with complicated game mechanics like AI / Physics / Sound / Particle Effects... etc etc that your FPS goes down the drain.
Show me a complete game ( i know, thats a hard ask and I dont expect it ) using poly counts that high and I will happily sing your praises.
Firstly,
if there is anyone out there who is interested in the demo rather than just arguing pointlessly then contact me at mlyons_vignette2@hotmail.com. If you are a graphic artist wanting to do something with all Aussie owned together I'd like to hear from you.
For everyone else,
Sorry guys it's time to take the gloves off as you just don't want to talk reasonable.
Guys I'm just saying that you don't need to keep using such low poly models but as long as some fools are willing to keep paying you to design sub standard things so be it. Personally, if you're not interested then I'm happy as a hobbyist doing what I'm doing and I will use bought models as the speeds are so fast now days that I can't see why mass produced models won't be the future and will improve and at only 10's or 100's of dollars not 10,000's that they pay for each silly little model from you guys - we're not talking about Michael Angelo here. I mean would anyone make a movie and then pay for everything furniture, the city they shoot in, cars and people to be custom made all from scratch ? what a joke the industry won?t continue that way it?s a competitive commercial reality. And only really high poly well done models will ever compete as one off creations.
Well I'm not a visual artist, and I haven't read all the preceeding posts, but poser I think you need to think about using bought models a bit more.
If everyone started using bought models (and/or textures), then everything will start to look the same. This is the case with sound right now- imho sound fx libraries are the root of all evil. I've even had a VIP ask me "why on earth, in this day and age, would anyone want to create original sound fx?" (how to make yourself popular with an audio freak in one quick and easy step).
If everything starts to look sameish, gameplay is sameish, sound and music is sameish, then what's to keep people buying "new" games?
go ahead mate, but you realise that mass produced models will never become a staple in the industry. Imagine if Hollwood had about one hundred costumes and every film had to use them, where's the variety. It also cuts down creativity how can you be creative if you have to use a specific model, if you have an artist working for you they can create anything.
And the fact of the matter is the higher the polycounts the better the artist needs to be. Oils paints have the potential to deliver and immense amount of depth in paintings over a medium such as acrylillics, but if you give both to an inexperienced artist its probable that the acryllic will actually look better because oils are such a difficult medium. Whereas if you give the same two to an experienced artist the quality of the oils will far surpass the acryllic. This is comparable to high and lowpoly. Also, why do you think that mass-produced models will suddenly begin taking root because of highpoly if they didn't over the last decade of lowpoly?
I'm looking forward to seeing how many of your engine's games sell using poser models like the ones you posted previously. The capabilities of the engine will mean nothing if the characters are not harnessing the power of it.
You still didn't answer my question so i'll repeat it
"why do you think that mass-produced models will suddenly begin taking root because of highpoly"?
EDIT: just another point to add to that, films etc. have been using high end models since the beginning of 3d in the movie and t.v industries and yet they don't use generic models. Surprisingly enough they hire artists who build the models for them.
High poly characters are a waste of resourses. 4-5k poly is fine with normal mapping. Not to mention theres more to a game graphics than uber detailed charaters. eg. enviroments..
Alot of film CG people are actually using normal mapping and cutting down the rendering time and hardware use.
Conumdrum- I don't believe to that high poly takes more skill. Its harder to fake geometry that actually put it in.
Its unfortunate, but i also agree that there will be 'bought' models. I believe it will be slightly different to the way poser described it. For example, Some game companys will buy licensed models from the copywrite holders of the character. E.g bugs bunny in 5k tris, 10k tris, 100k tris. Its also protects the image/representation of the character.
This will happen when games take a further leap into the generic. I believe hollywood actors will have there own models made for the game that coinsides with the movie they are making, representing exactly what they and there lawyers want. (eg- Tom cruise but a bit taller.)If u think about it, the multinational game company could make a series of games based on a few story lines, insert the copywrited character/s, tweak the engine and head to the bank.(like a mod) I also believe that the next gen pop stars will ship a game on their cd/dvd's aswell. (more reason to buy the real macoy) Its happening now. (mTV has game company..) There will always be the more independant studio making art, and the things that we love. That is what keeps me goin.
pop
I'd hate to come in at the last minute but no-one has talked about the current gen Handhelds.
Talking about all this 100,000 to 100 billion poly modeling is all well and good, and yes the power of computers will increase over time.
Yet the DS only supports 2048 polys on one screen and the PSP 15000 polys, (don't forget the GBA2 @ 64 polys) so to focus on one medium (the PC) and state that making Low poly model's for all games is a waste of time, isn't very bright.
I'd like to see this "20+fps" demo you're talking about.
I was forced to use a 5200fx for 3 weeks while i was doing RA work on a proposed LOD technique at qut. The thing couldn't run neverwinter nights at 15fps!
I suspect that poser is actually working with an engine that has a very fast view dependant LOD system in place which may or may not be combined with normal mapping.
popawheelie: i agree with you to a point (most of my argument is based around the skill involved in making lowpoly, but u might need to read back a bit).
Making a high poly model and actually using all those polys takes a lot of skill. Look at film quality models for example, most of the polys are used for accurate deformation because of the advanced animation involved, it takes a lot of ability to develop correct topolgy for the animation of muscle flex, fat and clothing. If high poly is going to go anywhere its going to be in realistic animation rather than visual detail, because (as you said) you can make a resonably realistic character with 4-5k (i'd say up to 10k) normal mapped characters.
He's left an email address down there...if you're nice, he'll send you a link.
I've seen what he's done and I don't want to judge too early simply because it is obviously a demo and I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, as well as a chance to respond to my feedback first. So for the moment I'll just say, no evidence of a complicated LOD system. Far as I can tell, he's just throwing everything at the GPU and letting it sort it out.
quote:Ps. I asked for but did not receive anyone else's models so I could prove I wasn't cheating - so now you will have to take my word on the poly counts. If when you see the models you disbelieve the poly counts then you will need to send me one of your own.
Or you could post your model up here for others to view?! Hell post an ingame wireframe shot! Or is your "superior" engine incapable of such a basic function?