"Yes, but how many polygons?" An artist blog entry with interesting numbers

[Shifty Geezer]

I think Nebula means the same model is redrawn over the same position several times in multiple passes. Does any developer talk about model complexity in terms of total triangles drawn though? PS2 was a monster for overdraw. Did any PS2 developer claim 40,000 polygons for a 5k model drawn 8 times?

 

[Neb]

I thought I read roughly the same for Uncharted 1 cutscenes. Well time will tell!

As for Crysis it has to render the whole models and/or parts several times due to the shading or such the game uses. The model is still like 15-30k (depends on model) but the polygon cost per frame and character is way beyond that. Also dunno how their soft flesh implementation works (and affects poly counts) as it's seems procedural.

You can see here. I disabled and set everything to lowest (shading) and only rendering of character in editor (second row, second image has no texture for face it just looks like it due to density of poylgons).

 

[ultragpu]

I see now, a rather brutal way of rendering and getting the result and would be interesting to see how consoles handle that in Crysis 2.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

I'm sorry, but... what??

Tesselation is nothing else but adding more polygons. Taking away geometry is a different thing that isn't really worth doing in realtime, it's better to manually create discreet LOD models.

I didn't type it correctly, you're correct, the tessellator Increases polygons, and when not focusing on them it RESETS them, not Decreasing them, my mistake for mistyping that.

The tesseltor can also be used on specific things too. maybe it's easier on the developer to make different LOD modles on characters, but doing that doesn't guaranty steady performance. all games these days have been using multiple LOD models and end up running at 30 or below fps no matter how many polygons are switching LODs.

take a look at Brutal legend for one, the game is stuck at 30fps with framerate dips, and Ive seen many games have exceptional framerate while pushing a whole lot more on screen detail, but what if Brutal legend incorporated tessellation. the performance would either remain the same but with increased detail or possibly an increase in steady performance. given the fact that tessellation only targets specific polygons that the camera focuses on, that would give a better opportunity for focused polygons to receive an increase or balance out..................and that would help a lot on the detail and performance on close ups on characters for that game, as it would for many other titles.

And i don't see what the big problems is incorporating the use of tessellation for making smoother detail on closeups....since it's not going to be rendering further detail what better than to maximize the detail that it IS focusing on.

and Tessellation may increase polygons but that doesn't mean that they can't increase to a fixed maximum number, take a look at gears2 or halo wars and how they were controlled.

as for the rest of my comment just forget it, well get back to being serious.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Oh my, please stop. You clearly don't have any idea what you're talking about.

Try to learn more about 3D graphics in general before making up such theories... There's a lot of information here on B3D so it's a good start.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Oh, and guys. Please stop spreading the news about Uncharted 2 and characters with 80 thousand polygons - it's almost certainly "18 thousand polygons on average" instead. It'd also make more sense compared to the numbers of the previous game, I can't see them more then doubling the poly count on everyone on top of all the other advancements.

18K is a very good number, the greatest game artist contest's limit is 10K and people can do amazing things with that already.

http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/dw/4/finals/main1.html

 

[PhilB]

Oh, and guys. Please stop spreading the news about Uncharted 2 and characters with 80 thousand polygons - it's almost certainly "18 thousand polygons on average" instead. It'd also make more sense compared to the numbers of the previous game, I can't see them more then doubling the poly count on everyone on top of all the other advancements.

18K is a very good number, the greatest game artist contest's limit is 10K and people can do amazing things with that already.

http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/dw/4/finals/main1.html

Yeah, 80 thousand is insane. I could see that number say for instance in the first teaser video that popped when the game was announced - Drake did look insanely detailed and it lead to a lot of speculation whether or not that was realtime recorded or touched up.

Okay, just looked at the video where he mentioned that (it was showing a cutscene) so it's probably cutscenes only since they're recorded. I know they say it's 'all in game engine and just recorded' but even in the first Uncharted there were some things that were a bit different between realtime and cutscenes.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

Oh, and guys. Please stop spreading the news about Uncharted 2 and characters with 80 thousand polygons - it's almost certainly "18 thousand polygons on average" instead. It'd also make more sense compared to the numbers of the previous game, I can't see them more then doubling the poly count on everyone on top of all the other advancements.

18K is a very good number, the greatest game artist contest's limit is 10K and people can do amazing things with that already.

http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/dw/4/finals/main1.html

if you don't mind me asking,.....what exact projects have you worked on that's rivaled uncharted?

no, actually forget that, that's to high, what exact projects have you worked on period.

oh i hope this isn't your answer.

.....Oh my, please stop. You clearly don't have any idea what you're talking about.

which is dodging the subject and really isn't explaining anything.

 

[Dr. Nick]

if you don't mind me asking,.....what exact projects have you worked on that's rivaled uncharted?

no, actually forget that, that's to high, what exact projects have you worked on period.

oh i hope this isn't your answer.



which is dodging the subject and really isn't explaining anything.

Cops, you don't need to be like that. Laa-Yosh is one of the more informative members of this community and has proven time and time again that he knows his stuff.

Speculation is great but this is where people come to learn facts. Not more PR bullcrap that you can get just about anywhere else. At least indicate that what you are saying is only speculation.

 

[SonComet]

Oh, and guys. Please stop spreading the news about Uncharted 2 and characters with 80 thousand polygons - it's almost certainly "18 thousand polygons on average" instead. It'd also make more sense compared to the numbers of the previous game, I can't see them more then doubling the poly count on everyone on top of all the other advancements.

18K is a very good number, the greatest game artist contest's limit is 10K and people can do amazing things with that already.

http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/dw/4/finals/main1.html

What do you make of the comment they made about pushing ~1.2 million polygons per frame? Unless I'm doing it wrong wouldn't that mean that they are only pushing 36m polygons per second. Seems low when compared to Capcom's claims of over 3m per frame and up to 120m polygons per second in RE5.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

Cops, you don't need to be like that. Laa-Yosh is one of the more informative members of this community and has proven time and time again that he knows his stuff.

Speculation is great but this is where people come to learn facts. Not more PR bullcrap that you can get just about anywhere else. At least indicate that what you are saying is only speculation.

alright.:smile:

but as for Noughty dog's comments on characters being about 80k, none of us can say that isn't true...........we don't even have the mesh of these characters to say otherwise. and even if we did have all the meshes none of us would be able to pinpoint anything.....and it would be stupid to even try.

what i think we can say is that they could be talking about the movies (in which case they can be as high as 100k, it doesn't matter it's all pre-rendered) as for the texture detail, alpha maps, normal maps, etcetera, don't seem to change much between cut scenes or gameplay.

that's it, my two cents.

 

[Betanumerical]

Oh, and guys. Please stop spreading the news about Uncharted 2 and characters with 80 thousand polygons - it's almost certainly "18 thousand polygons on average" instead. It'd also make more sense compared to the numbers of the previous game, I can't see them more then doubling the poly count on everyone on top of all the other advancements.

18K is a very good number, the greatest game artist contest's limit is 10K and people can do amazing things with that already.

http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/dw/4/finals/main1.html

So the main character is now 18k polygons.

Meaning its nearly half the previous game.

what the hell.

 

[sunscar]

So the main character is now 18k polygons.

Meaning its nearly half the previous game.

what the hell.

I think he's saying rhetorically - it makes more sense than having a dozen 80K poly character models running around all at once.

What do you make of the comment they made about pushing ~1.2 million polygons per frame? Unless I'm doing it wrong wouldn't that mean that they are only pushing 36m polygons per second. Seems low when compared to Capcom's claims of over 3m per frame and up to 120m polygons per second in RE5.

The metrics can be arbitrary - Capcom may be counting all mesh data being juggled vs NaughtyDog counting only visible geometry, or any number of other factors. And ofcourse not all polys are necessarily created equal - 1.2 million polys/frame can be just as taxing as four million/frame under the right circumstances.

 

[ultragpu]

Oh, and guys. Please stop spreading the news about Uncharted 2 and characters with 80 thousand polygons - it's almost certainly "18 thousand polygons on average" instead. It'd also make more sense compared to the numbers of the previous game, I can't see them more then doubling the poly count on everyone on top of all the other advancements.

18K is a very good number, the greatest game artist contest's limit is 10K and people can do amazing things with that already.

http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/dw/4/finals/main1.html

With all due respect but if you watched the video the guy clearly said MAIN characters each with 80k polygon. I have no doubt believing the average could be somewhere around 18k more or less which would only make sense anyway. I can also see how Normalmapping can make up for tons of details on the model but in Drake's case it's pure brute polygons under the hood and much less emphasize on Normalmapping. Another reason for the increased tris would probably constitute to better facial animation and movements in general, they did increase more bones to the characters in the sequel so it wouldn't be too far fetched would it?

 

[Laa-Yosh]

With all due respect, here are my arguments:

- he said 'average' which means he included enemies; we know enemy characters were about 10 to 15k in UC1, so 18K would be an upgrade here

- 18K really is a lot; most of the times triangles would already be so small it'd make the rasterizing quads in the GPU very inefficient; and also, I didn't see any details on the models that'd require or even suggest such high numbers

- as mentioned, the game pushes about 1.2 million polygons in a scene, with up to 500 objects - the math suggests that characters aren't 80K because that'd limit poly counts for the scenery and various objects beyond reason

As for using 80K models in the cinematics, what would be their reasons? If the standard models for the hero characters (already up around 30K) look good enough (they do IMHO) then nothing can really justify the quite substantial extra work...


All in all, I see neither any reason nor any proof (based on the media so far) to support this idea, it's just more likely that the programmer guy's tongue slipped during that interview. 18K on average makes more sense, the game still looks better then anything else, so anyone arguing about the higher numbers probably has some other agenda on his/her mind.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

if you don't mind me asking,.....what exact projects have you worked on that's rivaled uncharted?

I am the lead modeler at a CGI studio creating intro cinematics for video games. Our recent work includes Assassin's creed 2, Darksiders, and The Secret world.
We've also worked on ingame characters for Heavenly Sword and The Club.

 

[Neb]

What do you make of the comment they made about pushing ~1.2 million polygons per frame? Unless I'm doing it wrong wouldn't that mean that they are only pushing 36m polygons per second. Seems low when compared to Capcom's claims of over 3m per frame and up to 120m polygons per second in RE5.

That must be multipass numbers. If I ever buy the game I will profile it becouse no way it hits 3m, no way (well unless some spicey scenes).

About that 1.2m polygons per scene would fall quite in line with KZ2's 1m per scene on average.

 

[ultragpu]

With all due respect, here are my arguments:

- he said 'average' which means he included enemies; we know enemy characters were about 10 to 15k in UC1, so 18K would be an upgrade here

- 18K really is a lot; most of the times triangles would already be so small it'd make the rasterizing quads in the GPU very inefficient; and also, I didn't see any details on the models that'd require or even suggest such high numbers

- as mentioned, the game pushes about 1.2 million polygons in a scene, with up to 500 objects - the math suggests that characters aren't 80K because that'd limit poly counts for the scenery and various objects beyond reason

As for using 80K models in the cinematics, what would be their reasons? If the standard models for the hero characters (already up around 30K) look good enough (they do IMHO) then nothing can really justify the quite substantial extra work...


All in all, I see neither any reason nor any proof (based on the media so far) to support this idea, it's just more likely that the programmer guy's tongue slipped during that interview. 18K on average makes more sense, the game still looks better then anything else, so anyone arguing about the higher numbers probably has some other agenda on his/her mind.

Your explanation is quite reasonable and I agree with the analogy but still we shouldn't totally ignore that 80k number. I'm so interested mainly because it's so out of the norm but of course he could have miss-spoken, I guess we should wait till the game ships for further conclusions then.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Your explanation is quite reasonable and I agree with the analogy but still we shouldn't totally ignore that 80k number.

Yeah, looking at the cinematics shots, these are indeed quite smooth models:
http://ps3.ign.com/dor/objects/1422...thieves-20090918014133368.html?page=mediaFull
http://ps3.ign.com/dor/objects/1422...thieves-20090918014144743.html?page=mediaFull
A lot of the small stuff is actually modeled, like Chloe's belts and wristwatch, I'm not entirely sure if I could fit that into 30-35K with such smooth shapes for the body as well.
Yet the piece of cloth on her wrist is clearly using normal mapping for a lot of the shading detail and the folds and overlaps aren't actually modeled in. So they are still mindful of some poly budget.

And this guy in the foreground has some clearly visible faceting too:
http://ps3.ign.com/dor/objects/1422...thieves-20090918014142587.html?page=mediaFull
Also, his ears are clearly not detailed geometry, but normal mapped.
Then again he's not one of the main characters either...

But... look at Drake's mouth, it's a bit edgy, and the nostrils also look like not too high poly with shading and smoothness coming from the normal map.


Here, Drake's equipment is pretty smooth and all, same applies to Elena(?):
http://ps3.ign.com/dor/objects/1422...thieves-20090918014138603.html?page=mediaFull
But look at the bolts, and of course that steering wheel... could've used a bit more detail.


All the tiny observations aside, what an incredible looking game.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Now for some ingame shots...

http://ps3.ign.com/dor/objects/1422...thieves-20090818034057964.html?page=mediaFull
Not as high res IMHO, but the differences are pretty small.

http://ps3.ign.com/dor/objects/1422...thieves-20090602032635359.html?page=mediaFull
This one's quite detailed too.

http://ps3.ign.com/dor/objects/1422...thieves-20090818034100370.html?page=mediaFull
Drake's nice again, but look at the guy getting hit... that clearly is nowhere near 80K.

It's kinda hard to find close up shots of enemies (other characters available for competitive mutliplayer are probably more detailed then the generic goons). But I'd still say that the 18K average is closer to reality in their case.