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

[COPS N RAPPERS]

This is a bit old but, It seems that uncharted and Tomb Raider were neck and neck long ago in terms of polygons, lara croft from Underworld was actually about 40k too.
http://www.froyok.fr/blog/2011-11-modularity-and-drawcall
http://tombraiders.net/stella/images/blog/xnalara/xnalara_screenshot.jpg

Makes me now wonder what the new Tomb Raider is pushing.

 

[almighty]

Man I can't wait for the new TR game, especially has developers have promoised that the PC version is more then just a mere port

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

This is a bit old but, It seems that uncharted and Tomb Raider were neck and neck long ago in terms of polygons, lara croft from Underworld was actually about 40k too.
http://www.froyok.fr/blog/2011-11-modularity-and-drawcall
http://tombraiders.net/stella/images/blog/xnalara/xnalara_screenshot.jpg

Makes me now wonder what the new Tomb Raider is pushing.

It's just that Uncharted had more main characters all pushing a similar amount of polys each.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

It's just that Uncharted had more main characters all pushing a similar amount of polys each.

In gameplay, tomb raider had 30k characters mostly in the form of creatures and monsters,

uncharted had people that were 15 to 20k, and with VIPs getting the better geometry treatment in cut scenes, and when these people were in gameplay.

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

Even regular enemies (lots of them together), in Uncharted, had 15k poly counts each. Then, there were the huge statues, helicopters, trains, etc.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

Even regular enemies (lots of them together), in Uncharted, had 15k poly counts each. Then, there were the huge statues, helicopters, trains, etc.

NPCs and enemy meshes as a single is what i'm referring to, excluding environments, vehicles, and the quantity of these meshes replicated.

some of the main characters of uncharted 2 did have more geometry but not regular enemies. the regular enemies in underworld were creatures and beasts and used more geometry to express the types, kinda like metro 2033. meaning if they had wings and tentacles (with extra physics) it would be because of that being why they weighed so much.

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

NPCs and enemy meshes as a single is what i'm referring to, excluding environments, vehicles, and the quantity of these meshes replicated.

some of the main characters of uncharted 2 did have more geometry but not regular enemies. the regular enemies in underworld were creatures and beasts and used more geometry to express the types, kinda like metro 2033. meaning if they had wings and tentacles (with extra physics) it would be because of that being why they weighed so much.

The following is what I'm talking about:

"Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, PS3, 2007
Main characters – ~20,000-30,000 polygons
Drake – 26,584 polygons (highest LOD) - SRC
Pirates – ~12,000-15,000 polygons

Uncharted 2, PS3, 2009
Drake – ~37,000 polygons (No LODs, except for multiplayer) - SRC
NOTE: Lead Character Artist Rich Diamant cites 37k while Lead Programmer Pal Engstad cites 80k. I'm only going with the lower number because what artist DOESN'T know his own poly counts?
Chloe - 2,500 polygons (min LOD) - 45,000 polygons (max LOD)"

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

The following is what I'm talking about:

"Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, PS3, 2007
Main characters – ~20,000-30,000 polygons
Drake – 26,584 polygons (highest LOD) - SRC
Pirates – ~12,000-15,000 polygons

Uncharted 2, PS3, 2009
Drake – ~37,000 polygons (No LODs, except for multiplayer) - SRC
NOTE: Lead Character Artist Rich Diamant cites 37k while Lead Programmer Pal Engstad cites 80k. I'm only going with the lower number because what artist DOESN'T know his own poly counts?
Chloe - 2,500 polygons (min LOD) - 45,000 polygons (max LOD)"

right correct, each game pushed the story characters to bigger numbers in geometry detail. the interesting thing about that was the "80k" that was brought up years ago when the game was out, which brought about suspicion, which then was proven to be false. (do to the visible density of the wire frame meshes.)

.....they still do pack a punch though. I actually believe uncharted 2 pushed a grater fidelity than 3. (with the action involved and how clean the game looked.)


IMO, the 80k rumor was only started because i'm sure no one would be able to say otherwise when they saw these characters coming to life......and the fact that naughty dog actually reads and comments in forums to pull people's legs. but that's good publicity and advertising for you :smile2:


But i think the new Tombraider has a good chance to set the new record, a friend of mine tried the demo at comic-con and talked about major improvements the franchise has made. SSAO and strong shadows on the plants in some places (360 version tested), and pretty strong usage of post processing AA. it looked pretty clean he says. there's bits of loose gravel that hit the ground when you shoot some of the walls. the game has impressive geometry. fps takes a hit though he says.....he was warned though that the game needs fixing still.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

Huge listing of polygon numbers for assorted games. (3d model extractor used for some games.)

Re6- leon kennedy-14,358 polygons.
Metal gear sold 4- solid snake (Two LODs, 5-10,000 polygons total)
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?siteID=123112&id=14708441
Killzone 3- 10-15,000 polygons.
Enslaved-Trip- 22,103 polygons.
castlevania LOS-Laura 10,000 polygons.
castlevania LOS-gabriel 27,379 polygons (with all upgrades.)
Devil May Cry (new)-Dante 20,732 polygons.
Halo Reach-Noble 6 - 28,805 polygons. (with accessories.)
Forza motorsport 4- 500,000-1,000,000 polygons for auto vista,562,786 polygons for lamborghini Reventon.
Forza 4 Halo Warthog 798,005 polygons.

that's it for now folks.

 

[Ruskie]

Huh, quite a lot of triangles in Reach Nobel 6 team. Its interesting because, while detailed, I would never say ~25-30k. Same with Elites texture resolution, people compared it to KZ3s and thought it was not so hot, but turned out it was actually higher. Not sure what to think...maybe art style doesn't lend itself for that "in your face" look.

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

The MAWLR was 250,000 polys in Killzone 3 (from "the creation of Killzone 3" GG presentation). Lowest LOD was 100,000.

FM4 had up to 1 million polys for the menu/picture selection? Nice. What was the in-game version number? Was it posted before?

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

Huh, quite a lot of triangles in Reach Nobel 6 team. Its interesting because, while detailed, I would never say ~25-30k. Same with Elites texture resolution, people compared it to KZ3s and thought it was not so hot, but turned out it was actually higher. Not sure what to think...maybe art style doesn't lend itself for that "in your face" look.

some peaces are higher in polys than others and were made to be interchangeable or overlaid on the spartan, while other things were baked onto the model. the base model is about 20k. http://oi48.tinypic.com/25zjhbr.jpg

with halo 4 they took it a step further, nothing is baked on master chief as he is just about customizable from the ground up.

master chief striped down
master chief polygon mesh

I'm interested in the promethean knight, it's model starts with 4?,??? polygons in the forerunner vidoc.

The MAWLR was 250,000 polys in Killzone 3 (from "the creation of Killzone 3" GG presentation). Lowest LOD was 100,000.

FM4 had up to 1 million polys for the menu/picture selection? Nice.

yes, photo mode and auto vista.

What was the in-game version number? Was it posted before?

this site has the tools for extraction and the people who viewed the models.
http://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=4256&start=1410
140,000....give or take a few polygons, it increases to near photo mode lod when you switch to hot lap....there are 4 lods i think, LOD-0 is 140,000 polys, which includes cockpit and exterior, photo mode is LOD3 and auto vista is LOD4.

this site use to have the models but the links are all dead.
http://www.aepbox.com/3d-model/17603-forza-motorsport-cars-pack-3d-models.html

 

[Karamazov]

so we went from 4500 polygons cars in GT4 to 140 000 in forza 4, what can we expect from next gen ? 1 million per car during gameplay ? and +100 000 for cars in games like GTA ?

 

[Laa-Yosh]

with halo 4 they took it a step further, nothing is baked on master chief as he is just about customizable from the ground up.

master chief polygon mesh

Er, I understand that you don't play Halo, but the customizable character is not Master Chief, it's the multiplayer avatar for the player

You are right that the undersuit is the same for Chief and the Spartan IVs, though. Which is somewhat of a contradiction, as the former is supposed to be 5 years old tech...


By the way, Halo 4 characters seem to be somewhat more optimized than the Reach ones. Both the polygon counts and the texture space are used more efficiently, most likely because the environments use up more resources.
Or it could also have to do with the lack of 3-way battles in Reach, where you only fought Covenant - Halo 4 has to accommodate fights where you have Covenant and Prometheans present at the same time.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

Er, I understand that you don't play Halo, but the customizable character is not Master Chief, it's the multiplayer avatar for the player

Oh yeah i know that, it's the same with halo reach, which i use to have. the picture was used to show customization options. but it's still Chief's mesh underneath being used as the baseline.

You are right that the undersuit is the same for Chief and the Spartan IVs, though. Which is somewhat of a contradiction, as the former is supposed to be 5 years old tech...

yes, the accommodations were probably made to save time...halo reach was the same with the reusing of augmentations.

By the way, Halo 4 characters seem to be somewhat more optimized than the Reach ones. Both the polygon counts and the texture space are used more efficiently, most likely because the environments use up more resources.
Or it could also have to do with the lack of 3-way battles in Reach, where you only fought Covenant - Halo 4 has to accommodate fights where you have Covenant and Prometheans present at the same time.

I don't know, I would need the models of halo 4 to know if it's true. the max texture size for the noble 6 spartan is 2048x2048 but most of them are 512x512 and some go up to 1024x1024.....Elites too. armor pieces have there own texture sizes.(which are small.)

normal maps thumbnails for Spartans and Elites.

As for the meshes, master cheif looks a little more (looking at the feet and chest core, the intricate geometry depth is there.) the squares are smaller too on the spots that have no armor, but i would have to convert the noble 6 mesh into quads instead of triangles to match them up correctly. i'll get back on that.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

so we went from 4500 polygons cars in GT4 to 140 000 in forza 4, what can we expect from next gen ? 1 million per car during gameplay ? and +100 000 for cars in games like GTA ?

depends on the hardware.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

I'm back, I've tried to convert the noble 6 model into quads many times.....no success.

but i did find some of halo 4's textures.

Halo 4 Helmet texture

Master chief concept

looks like the same detail as the ones i'm seeing in reach. I do have a theory on the cheif's textures and how they are probably processed.

[theory]
because they're some many combinations of armor used to overlay on the mesh underneath, the texture maps don't have to cover so much space for the models. the textures in halo reach include armor and all kinds of detail.

meaning halo reach's textures were grand because a lot of things were baked on to the mesh. now with halo 4, armor and suite being completely separate; the texture maps don't have to be so high. the same goes for quite a few enemies in the game. so whenever you play as Master chief, it probably loads up his armor and the textures that go with it.

that's just about what i got going on in my mind.:smile2:

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Again, those are textures for Spartan IV multiplayer characters and not the Master Chief. Multiplayer has different budgets because it has to support different, less controllable situations (there may be up to 16 individually customized player characters in an area, with all possible weapons, for example).

Your theory is mostly wrong about the system, though. It's one common undersuit with one set of textures for all and a tint control layer to set custom colors; but all the individual armor pieces have a surface area similar to that of the Reach armor, with even more detail baked from highres models into the normal map. They also have tint layers and each separately configurable piece is probably on a different UV layout to optimize memory usage - head, chest, shoulder, forearm, legs.

You can see some more stuff here:
http://chadhaleyportfolio.blogspot.com/
Also includes Covenant weapons and vehicles.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

Again, those are textures for Spartan IV multiplayer characters and not the Master Chief.

and again, i already know that.

Multiplayer has different budgets because it has to support different, less controllable situations (there may be up to 16 individually customized player characters in an area, with all possible weapons, for example).

regardless of the grand explanation of the matters involved, the texture detail of the multiplayer "AVATARS" bare little differences to whatever "special" treatment you speak of...
http://angrybananas.com/files/2012/06/e32012_halo4_pvp6.jpg
http://angrybananas.com/files/2012/06/e32012_halo4_pvp7.jpg

the hairline scratches on their armor are the same found in the single player campaign.
as for changes in textures sizes, there's no way to pinpoint the exact sizes.....unless you have these textures to say who's wrong and right.

You can see some more stuff here:
http://chadhaleyportfolio.blogspot.com/
Also includes Covenant weapons and vehicles.

what? yeah, mostly concepts, pretty decent but doesn't add anything else to support.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Shading and reflections in particular may be far simpler compared to the Master Chief. After all you only see parts of him during gameplay except for the occasional third person view, whereas the scene can be full with SIVs in multiplayer. And Spartan Ops scales enemy numbers based on how many people are playing.

I'm not willing to get into more details about the assets, let's just agree that I have some basis for my arguments.

The Covenant weapon and ship stuff on Chad's site are actual ingame models BTW.