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

Whether they "look" the same isn't of concern.

Looking quite different suggests that the character has been rebuilt, so we can't make any extrapolations from the poly count of the 3+ year old engine demo model. The Gears version of the Locust is more than likely a heavier model, probably in the range of the Wrench and the other humans. So it is a concern.
 
Also Killzone 2 character models, which are meant to be more then one whole level in KZ. Do we know the polycount for levels in KZ per chance?.

But I doubt I will ever see those numbers :(.

KZ2 characters are probably in the 10-15K range, you can easily see poly edges on faces and clothing. You can consider this high-end at the moment for tps/fps games.
 
KZ2 characters are probably in the 10-15K range, you can easily see poly edges on faces and clothing. You can consider this high-end at the moment for tps/fps games.

I agree with the poygon number to. But I have to say that mapping techniques can fool one easily into thinking that a model has more polygons than what it actually has. If you dont know what to search for then it would be difficult to estimate polygon count.

mapping techniques FTW!

Also Killzone 2 character models, which are meant to be more then one whole level in KZ. Do we know the polycount for levels in KZ per chance?.

But I doubt I will ever see those numbers :(.

When they say a whole level they mean the source model not the final in-game model. The difference is that the normal mapping for the models will be created from the source model and then applied to a much less detailed model for in-game use.

I must say that I find it ridicolous when devs talk like if the normal/bump map textures where actuall real polygons... tsss (goes for all devs who do it).
 
Crysis soldiers must have a lot of polygons, their faces are ACE (I mean graphics, not....:LOL:) .
Stalker has a lot of polygons I have heard, maybe someone in here can give a number, would be nice to know the numbers.
 
Crysis soldiers must have a lot of polygons, their faces are ACE (I mean graphics, not....:LOL:) .
Stalker has a lot of polygons I have heard, maybe someone in here can give a number, would be nice to know the numbers.

Is between 8000-14000 polygons per character (enemies differ like dogs, rats, mutants etc). Exoskeleton character (the exo suit) has 10000+ polygons (type). The other non exo takes up a bit more since the faces is rendered (exo has a mask). Weapons and weapons on back is not included in the polygon numbers only character model. :smile:
 
That Samus footage uses prerendered graphics, none of it is realtime.

everyone knows that. thus I said "offline rendered" which is the same as saying prerendered CGI.

I'm still interested in knowing how many polygons were used in the model. just because it's prerendered doesn't mean it did not use polygons (it does).
 
everyone knows that. thus I said "offline rendered" which is the same as saying prerendered CGI.

I'm still interested in knowing how many polygons were used in the model. just because it's prerendered doesn't mean it did not use polygons (it does).

I know that, but I don't see the point simply because it's not rendered by the actually hardware. To me, it's more interesting and impressive to know what the actual hardware itself can render as oppose to being done on a superior hardware. I mean, think about it, they have basically unlimited amount of polygons at their disposal to render whatever and however they want.

I didn't mean to be rude or anything, and your question is still very valid, but it kind loses some of the magic when it's prerendered, you know what I mean. Also, is it even possible to find out how many polygons they use for prerendered stuff? I don't ever recall people giving out numbers for prerendered CG.
 
If you're interested, I can give you some rough numbers for our models, although the actual rendered polygon count is dependent on the tesselation parameters for the subdivision surface models. I'll have to look it up at work for the characters and such.

I can tell you though that some of the Mental Ray rendered scenes (for ambient occlusion) had polygon counts in the tens of millions on Mark of Chaos.
PRMan on the other hand tesselated everything to subpixel sized micropolygons so I can't really give numbers for that ;)
 
I know that, but I don't see the point simply because it's not rendered by the actually hardware. To me, it's more interesting and impressive to know what the actual hardware itself can render as oppose to being done on a superior hardware. I mean, think about it, they have basically unlimited amount of polygons at their disposal to render whatever and however they want.

I didn't mean to be rude or anything, and your question is still very valid, but it kind loses some of the magic when it's prerendered, you know what I mean. Also, is it even possible to find out how many polygons they use for prerendered stuff? I don't ever recall people giving out numbers for prerendered CG.



okay, I understand where you're coming from now. yeah it is interesting to see what can be done by hardware on-the-fly, in realtime.

as for prerendered CGI, it's true they have less limitations on how much they can render. they can spend time putting many more polygons into models, rendering in much higher quality, have much better lighting. much higher resolution textures, etc. however the resources are still limited since only a certain level of graphics get achived even in CG.

sometimes the number of polygons is stated for CG scenes in movies and such, but rarely for CG demos. but I thought maybe someone might know.
 
Actually it could've used NURBS.;)

You can model in NURBS but doesnt your gpu actually only render poly's because hardware cant actually handle real nurbs? I remember reading something like that with the wii hardware hype that it was getting some kind of special uber effient/powerfull nurbs hardware.
 
You can model in NURBS but doesnt your gpu actually only render poly's because hardware cant actually handle real nurbs? I remember reading something like that with the wii hardware hype that it was getting some kind of special uber effient/powerfull nurbs hardware.

I was referring to the offline rendered Metroid clip.
 
I'm not aware of any 'native' NURBS renderers. Everyone tesselates them to triangles or micropolygons at render time.
 
Are you sure? I could have sworn the highest LOD model in Super Mario 64 uses 700 polygons. Maybe you're talking about the giant 3D Mario head from the opening? I wouldn't be surprised if that was made of 1500 polygons.
IIRC, I picked up the 1500 figure from a Next Generation mag. It was definitely referring to the in-game model, because they said it was his model when closest to the camera. I don't find the number unbelievable, because he was composed of sausage links.
 
IIRC, I picked up the 1500 figure from a Next Generation mag. It was definitely referring to the in-game model, because they said it was his model when closest to the camera. I don't find the number unbelievable, because he was composed of sausage links.

Well, the thing is, when they were demoing the GC back in 2000, they showed off the Mario 128 demo, and EGM says the model was the same model from Mario 64, which uses 700 polygons.

As for Mario being composed of sausage links, wouldn't the Mario Sunshine model look just as bad if it uses the same amount of polygons as the N64 version? Heck, as I recall, the human models in the first Half Life on PC were about 800 polygons as well, and they look much better than the Mario 64 Mario model.

Edit - I found it. It's on wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hl_hdpackzomb.jpg

Here's a comparison. Even the lowest polygon model looks better than Mario.
 
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A comparison of the many zombie model incarnations throughout Half-Life. The upper-left is the original model, upper-right is from the Dreamcast port, lower-left is from the Half-Life High Definition Pack, and the lower right is from the PlayStation 2 port.

Polygon counts

Original - 844
Dreamcast - 1649
High Definition - 1700
PlayStation 2 - 2822 (Highest LOD)

Pretty amazing that the Dreamcast model looks so much worse than the HD model yet the poly counts are essentially equal. I'm guessing it's because it was a port of the original instead of the HD pack? Also the PS2 model looks identical to the HD model even though it has quite a few more polys.
 
Pretty amazing that the Dreamcast model looks so much worse than the HD model yet the poly counts are essentially equal. I'm guessing it's because it was a port of the original instead of the HD pack? Also the PS2 model looks identical to the HD model even though it has quite a few more polys.
It looks to me that they've just redistributed the polygons. The shoulders look better in the HD model but the hands, OTOH (pardon the pun), look worse.

(Before I looked at the images, I was expecting it to be a normal map issue, but that doesn't seem to be the case)
 
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