Caradavin on 17/11/2014 at 19:05
Hello again. I am trying to make my first model. The first one was too complex, so I did it again in a much simpler way. However, when I converted the e file to bin, I got a bunch of errors about invalid vertexes and a final error saying there were too many polygons! I don't know how much simpler I can make it, to be honest. Of course, I am new to this, so it's entirely possible I'm screwing something up or making it too big or something. Here is the error message: Well, Time Warner sucks so I can't show you pictures yet. Once the internet actually works, I will be able to. What does one do when a model has too many polygons, and so help me God, don't say "reduce the polygons" or I will hunt you down. :laff: j/k But really, I don't know how to reduce polygons, so if someone could point me in any helpful direction, I would so appreciate it. The first model was made with polygons and I made the second one with circles instead.
PinkDot on 17/11/2014 at 19:18
If there is too many polygons then... well, you need to reduce the polycount. BIN format allows for approximately 1024 polygons.
What's your current polycount?
Not sure what you mean by "you made it with circles". What sort of technique is that?
It's a good practice to model with quads and triangles only. Pentagons and others may be confusing.
Also - do you have any polygons cutting-through each other? These will cause geometry to be split into extra polygons and that will increase the polycount further.
Caradavin on 17/11/2014 at 22:59
Quote Posted by PinkDot
If there is too many polygons then... well, you need to reduce the polycount. BIN format allows for approximately 1024 polygons.
What's your current polycount?
Not sure what you mean by "you made it with circles". What sort of technique is that?
It's a good practice to model with quads and triangles only. Pentagons and others may be confusing.
Also - do you have any polygons cutting-through each other? These will cause geometry to be split into extra polygons and that will increase the polycount further.
3778 triangles and 97 faces - that's the only information I know to find at this time. I'm sure once I get better at this I will be able to find the polycount. I do think the are polygons cutting through each other. I tried very hard not to let that happen. I have no technique, as this is my first model. Using quads and triangles only? That sounds like a nightmare, but I will do it. I use sketch up to make the primary model and I have then imported it to anim8or and blender, but then I just click around on things and get lost (and yes, I have done the tuts on both). Better than last week when I couldn't even make a primary model.:thumb:
Renzatic on 17/11/2014 at 22:59
This is one of those questions that'll be hard to answer without pictures. It also depends on what program you're using.
Once you get some shots up, I'll try to give you some more specific advice.
Caradavin on 17/11/2014 at 23:05
Yes, this is what I am doing wrong. I was trying to make it very smooth. Thank for the links, I've been almost 24 hours without reliable internet due to Time Warner sucking; it's hard enough to have to fight every other minute to reconnect so I can post something. And PinkiDot said something about triangles and quads, but when I looked at my sketchup, I only have circles, polygons, rectangles, and rotated rectangles along with a line tool and an arc tool. Maybe this program is not the one I should be using at all. :o
Renzatic on 17/11/2014 at 23:06
What program are you using? When you say arc tool, it makes me think of SketchUp.
Renzatic on 17/11/2014 at 23:36
SketchUp, yeah. That's a great program for mocking up concepts, but not so great for making game models. The problem with it is that the underlying topology (fancy talk for polygon mesh) it creates is all kinds of overblown and goofy, and is almost impossible to clean up.
Case in point, I just made a similar model with a 24 sided cylinder, and the polygon count came out to 336 tris. That's obviously a helluva lot less.
You can still use SketchUp for banging out shapes to give you an idea on how to build something, but when it comes to games, especially anything involving Dark, it's all about efficiency. For that, you're better suited with Blender or Anim8tor.
LarryG on 18/11/2014 at 00:50
There is a dynamic tension in modeling for thief. You want the minimal number of polys to be kind to the engine, but you want the maximum number to have it lit properly. The reason I say this is that each facet gets either lit or unlit independently. So if you make a flat surface, say the face of a door, with a single quad - quadrilateral (which will get converted to two tris - triangles by 3ds to bin), the door will look crappy in lighting situations where the door is only partially lit because a tri is either lit or not lit, no smooth shading across the surface. So to get a better looking door in those circumstances, you need to add polys - but non-coplanar polys as 3ds to bin will try to merge coplanar polys to reduce the poly count. Note there are 4 settings for 3ds to bin: least splits, less splits, more splits, and max speed; less splits = the most coplanar poly merging and max speed = the least coplanar poly merging. If you want a door that will light properly when you place it near the edge of your light radius, break up the plane that makes the surface of the door into smaller pieces which relate to the door texture, then move the vertices a little bit so that the facets aren't perfectly coplanar and 3ds to bin doesn't undo your careful work. In general, the flatter your model, the more you may want to add polys, while the rounder your model the more you will want to reduce polys. Also for non-flat objects try using one of the shader options in 3ds to bin: gouraud, phong, and phong gouraud. They muck about with the surface normals near poly edges, erasing the appearance of an edge, and smoothing things over to make it look higher poly. You have to try the different shaders to see which will work best for your specific model in-game. Each is slightly different in the algorithm used to adjust the surface normals. If you want to get really fancy, for each section that has different curvature, you can define a different material spec and use a different shader, all using the same texture.
What I'm trying to say is, think simple when you low-poly model. Only add polys where you need them to make the model look good in the game. Take advantage of the features built into the tools to make low poly models look better without having to add polys. Over time you will get a feel for how to best model for Thief. Meanwhile, start with the least polys needed to suggest the shape, put all your energy into making great textures to hide the low poly flaws, and repeatedly go into the game to look and see whether the model is good enough, only adding polys where the game tells you they are needed. (When you update a model, DromEd will reload the bin when you exit game mode, so look at a model in game mode, fix it and make a new bin, exit game mode, then re-enter game mode to see your changes.) You'll be surprised at how few you can get away with.
