"Yes, but how many polygons?" An artist blog entry with interesting numbers
- Thread starter Farid
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flipswitch
Newcomer
Regarding drake's polygon count in UC1, I read in an interview posted at GAF that in UC2 they're using the same model, but they didn't do that in the original.And yes there's improved lighting/shadowing and some other things included in the cutscenes.
COPS N RAPPERS
Regular
you know, diving further into the subject, literally you can make a 30,000 polygon model look 80,000 or above. http://i50.tinypic.com/2nhooyq.jpg
And i think that's what they did, and that's probably how this whole rumor started.
turn10 did the same so i don't see why not, starting such speculation equals more sales and happy buyers. since there's no one who can really crack into the truth, they can say it.
Huh?? What, are you talking about normal mapping??
COPS N RAPPERS
Regular
no.
the model has plenty of polygons to show less edges as it is.
70 percent of that model already has most of the molding done.
the maps just add more to the detail.
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no.
the model has plenty of polygons to show less edges as it is.
70 percent of that model already has most of the molding done.
the maps just add more to the detail.
Hmm... I'm not sure what you mean or what you're really trying to say? It seems to me you just described normal mapping.
Yeah, I absolutely don't get anything either. It's an ingame model like anything else, nothing special in technology there. It's just good quality work (no wonder the guy got hired at Blizzard), but doesn't use anything that Gears 1 didn't have.
COPS N RAPPERS
Regular
"the model has plenty of polygons to show less edges as it is."
http://i48.tinypic.com/2myrihi.jpg
that is what I'm primary talking about, the 35,000 polygons, nothing else.
and for Nathan's mesh, the same thing.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CcB1MdhiIpI/SrQKX3FvoxI/AAAAAAAAACs/mtHaFn4Il_o/s1600-h/DSCF1033b.JPG
yes, normal mapping is also in there as well, but i wasn't trying to highlight that.
Nathan is a smaller character than the one in that example and so that actually would mean the mesh it's self is more compacted. still, if you look at that mesh of nathan you see the spaces in the wire frame looking just as big.
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COPS N RAPPERS
Regular
you're rude you know that, i already explained it.
I'm sorry but you don't need to purposely complicate things.
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Not offence I have read your posts but ND has released the specs of the polycounts in unchy 2 on the ps3, pretty clearly; I don't understand why you try to persuade the polycounts is just a 'mystification' of nd thanks to a particular graphics technic.
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You didn't explain anything. What do you mean about this entire thing, how is this accomplished technically, why is it supposedly different from normal everyday modeling practices?
Or are you just making stuff up here?
Well there was a shot from a magazine that showed U2 Drakes face and shoulder wireframe. As reference there was posted a 70-80K wireframe models of human and by comparing the U2 Drake face and shoulders are far below the same density in polygons as those references. Actually it looked quite like the U1 Drake wireframe model.
And nothing suggest the lowerbody has more unexpected density as the clothes are mostly molded into model something the 70K model didn't do yet still had more density!
Honestly multipass or just hype numbers. You have the wirframe models to see, words from devs can be candy coated (multipass, only cutscene, ingame, "720p" etc etc etc yadda yadda yadda)!
Well there was a shot from a magazine that showed U2 Drakes face and shoulder wireframe. As reference there was posted a 70-80K wireframe models of human and by comparing the U2 Drake face and shoulders are far below the same density in polygons as those references. Actually it looked quite like the U1 Drake wireframe model.
And nothing suggest the lowerbody has more unexpected density as the clothes are mostly molded into model something the 70K model didn't do yet still had more density!
Honestly multipass or just hype numbers. You have the wirframe models to see, words from devs can be candy coated (multipass, only cutscene, ingame, "720p" etc etc etc yadda yadda yadda)!
From what I seen the models are exactly the same ingame & cutscenes. & I have the game. You can't believe them, ok, but ND has just repeat a lot of times that the cutscenes has the same engine setting. ND in the bonus video not leaves space of ambiguity or misinterpretation, they are pretty 'honest' when we talking of technical specs. ND is the same who have declared u2 maxed out the cell...
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You seem to have missread my post and just got hanged up on the last sentence which was just a "not everything devs says is true to the letter".
I never said the mesh was different ingame/cutscene. And if you backtrack this thread you can find meshes and numbers and try to compare.
70K model
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/6796/hl2palyxadr.jpg
"80K" model
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CcB1MdhiIpI/SrQKX3FvoxI/AAAAAAAAACs/mtHaFn4Il_o/s1600-h/DSCF1033b.JPG
26K model
http://i38.tinypic.com/rmi77l.jpg
And there you have something that isn't correct then as it has better detailed by doing more stuff not present in ingame play (same polygon model but better shaders etc why pre-recorded despite ND saying the videos aint to masking loading). Consult Deepbrown. And having as reference a 70K/80k model and then seeing the part of U2 Drake mesh. Looking at the difference I believe they are talking about multipass numbers.
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There's been an interview where they've explained what this means: all the cores and SPU's are busy 100% of the time.
But it doesn't mean that more optimized code, artwork, or different programming approaches can't do better on the same system. Which is what we can expect them to do next.
The last pics is dated 08 ....
I think what he's attempting to explain is that they're working with enough geometry to define basic details - straps, spikes, gouges, etcetera, but filling out finer detail with normal maps. It's honestly just common sense that good atristry combined with a reasonable poly budget means better looking models, though.
Ofcourse it is from Uncharted 1 and from ND pdf rendering tech document but put there as reference for a 26K model (backtrack thread for PDF document)!
And the top one is from CM10 for HL2. It is just for reference. And all in Wireframe and with 2 of the images having debug info to verify numbers.
You know reference to have something to compare to to gauge complexity. So you have human shaped models with visible faces and hands. Two of the usually most geometry dense areas AFAIK. Polygon budget may differ as what modeler finds most important but nverthless one can gauge complexity quite good by wireframe models when having references for different meshes and their polygon amount.
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COPS N RAPPERS
Regular
the pic is of Nathan from uncharted 1, it was from a Mudbox PDF, i believe it was released a year after Uncharted1 came out.
yes, that's pretty much it.
Well there was a shot from a magazine that showed U2 Drakes face and shoulder wireframe. As reference there was posted a 70-80K wireframe models of human and by comparing the U2 Drake face and shoulders are far below the same density in polygons as those references. Actually it looked quite like the U1 Drake wireframe model.
And nothing suggest the lowerbody has more unexpected density as the clothes are mostly molded into model something the 70K model didn't do yet still had more density!
Honestly multipass or just hype numbers. You have the wirframe models to see, words from devs can be candy coated (multipass, only cutscene, ingame, "720p" etc etc etc yadda yadda yadda)!
correct as well.
that little pic of UC2's Nathan as small as it is it actually shows the torso lesser dense than the face it's self, which is just like that one pic of Nathan from Uncharted1.
in Uncharted1 most of the textures weren't all that great, but they used a lot of tricks to make all of the lighting and colors stand out well in most of the areas of the game.
more or less, it's the art direction that's making these polygon numbers look as if they could be true.
80k performance wise it's not logical, and most of the time a gamer doesn't really spend time focusing on the models.
my conclusion is (and i'm going to put is as blunt as i can so i don't get any "lost in translation" comments ) is that all of the polygons are placed in the right places and places that matter most. ( such as, hands, wrists, shoulders, joints, all the places that most people would probably suspect.)
all within a 30 to 32k budget, which i think would play essential in solid performance. and for the most part they did fine with 26k.
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