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Tris count for meelee weapons?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Leonetienne500, Aug 19, 2019.

  1. Leonetienne500

    Leonetienne500

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    Hello, i am currently working on a weapons pack with the theme: medieval weapons.
    I was wondering if my models are too high-poly or too low-poly?

    I do not stylise them, i want them to look as real (maybe a bit fantasy) as possible.
    However i do include emission maps for them, for powerups or enchantments for example.


    My models have (in average) 2000-3000 tris each and 2k textures.
    I also make them consist of multiple meshes (eg handle, crossguard, blade etc). That makes it easier to distribute materials and makes them kind of modular i guess. If a developer wants a different pommel on a sword, it's quite easy to just swap them out.

    I am asking for a bit of feedback from you guys?
    I was thinking of including at least 20 different weapons and a few shields.
    Here it in its current state. Just finished the sword on the right.

    Have been working on it for maybe three days, so it's quite a fresh project.



     
    BrandyStarbrite likes this.
  2. BIGTIMEMASTER

    BIGTIMEMASTER

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    Make them as efficient as possible and provide LODs. Without wireframe and UV shots nobody can say if you are modeling efficiently or not.

    For a photoreal, cinematic axe, maybe you need 50k tris if it's real ornate. For 3rd person game, you can probably LOD to a few hundred and look the same.
     
  3. Leonetienne500

    Leonetienne500

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    I want them to look ok when they are very near to the camera and them not ruining the fps if 20 npcs are carrying them.
    So i kind of went the middle road.

    I am not targetting mobile games though. My target group develops for modern pcs.

    Nearly all small details are baked into the normal maps.


    here's the wireframe of the dagger.


    and of the sword (the blade convex, so there are some loopcuts). Since it is much bigger, it also has more detail
     
  4. BIGTIMEMASTER

    BIGTIMEMASTER

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    I on mobile so won't make super detailed review, but pommel looks like lots unnecessary geo. As does sheath. Probably fine for lod0, but you should be able to get down to few hundred tris and basically look the same from short distance.

    In case you aren't aware, stuff like this can benefit from mirrored UVs. Should be able to pack multiple weapons into single texture. Reduce the texture size in unity to get quick idea how much resolution u really need.

    No reason to go middle of the road with geo. Use the minimum amount to reach you desired look at camera distance, and make lods from there. It's really easy stuff. Beginners avoid it because it sounds complex. It's not at all. Just a bit of tedium. But game assets need it. Especially generic stuff for a store.
     
  5. Leonetienne500

    Leonetienne500

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    Makes sense. Going to look into making multiple lods.
    Avoided doing it, not because it seemed difficult, but because it was messing with my UVs. Because it would change the topology. Meaning the textures were either streched etc on the lod0 or lod1 / 2 models.A

    Lets say i have three lod variants of one model,
    how do i implement them in unity that they swap out automatically?
     
  6. Antypodish

    Antypodish

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    Depending on models requirement, 3D software have typically modificator, which allows increase low poly count, to higher poly count, with keeping UV consistency. It may be harder to achieve same, other way round. Maybe latest tools however are better, when I was using them while ago.

    but that allowed with few clicks jump from low poly, to high poly models. Mesh may not always result exact desires shape however, if hard edges are involved.

    Other than that, I would follow, what @BIGTIMEMASTER said
     
  7. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

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    There isn't a one size fits all for model complexity. It all depends on the target platform. I agree with above that providing at least 1 additional LOD would be helpful, as that will allow a lot more flexibility to the game developer.
     
  8. SparrowGS

    SparrowGS

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    Ryiah and Leonetienne500 like this.
  9. Leonetienne500

    Leonetienne500

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    Sounds great! I managed to do it. I just "dissolved" a bunch of edges that made the model rounder.
    The LOD0 dagger has 1500 tris and the LOD1 variant i made in about 40 minutes has only 620 tris. Almost reduced by 67%!

    I just had a lot of trouble with UVs.
    The LOD1 model has a few minor uv glitches like seams at some edges.
    I think those can be disregarded if they are only visible up close, right?
    Like if you really zoom into the opening of the sheath lod1

    Thanks SparrowsNest! Naming it worked perfectly.
     
    Joe-Censored likes this.
  10. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Good topic for a forum like polycount.
     
    Martin_H likes this.
  11. HavenbrookStudio

    HavenbrookStudio

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    Not sure if this will make a difference but I'm much more likely to buy an asset pack (especially at a premium price) if LODs are included. There are so many assets I would have liked to get but without LODs it just sometimes means the "thing" I want the assets for is not possible due to performance restrictions.

    As an example, a recent asset pack I bought came to a total of 1.2M tris and 1.3M verts. With 2 different LODs included for each item the total was reduced to 170k tris and 200k verts in an open world scene using the lowest LOD.

    Without the LODs I would not have purchased it.
     
    SparrowGS likes this.
  12. Leonetienne500

    Leonetienne500

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    I am planning on releasing LOD0, LOD1, and LOD2.
    Aka a Res for right infront of the cam, the npc infront of you and the npc 20 meters in the background

    Sadly Sparrows soloution did not work out. I am getting "Inconsistent LOD naming" warnings... So Unity does not set up my lods. My three FBX files are named:
    Dagger0_LOD0.fbx
    Dagger0_LOD1.fbx
    Dagger0_LOD2.fbx

    Any idea why i'm getting these?
     
  13. SparrowGS

    SparrowGS

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    You need them to be on the same FBX to get one object with different LODs (you can do this manually, but the auto stuff is on the same FBX)

    have Dagger.FBX,
    inside it 3 object each name accordingly (Dagger_LOD0, Dagger_LOD1, Dagger_LOD2),
    have each one if the Dagger_LODx objects a "parent"(depending on how your modeling software works) for the objects that make up each LOD.
    Dagger_LOD0.Blade, Dagger_LOD0.Handle, etc.
     
  14. Leonetienne500

    Leonetienne500

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    You mean like this?
     
  15. Leonetienne500

    Leonetienne500

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    It worked! Nice.
    Should i fiddle with the LOD Group component or just leave it as is for the developer to decide?
    I mean the camera distance. Obiously not the meshes.
     
  16. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Supply a default set, it will usually work for most games as LODs are based on screen size usually. Experiment to reduce popping best you can with fewest LODs.

    Developers can then merely bias for quality settings/target hardware.
     
  17. BIGTIMEMASTER

    BIGTIMEMASTER

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    Sometimes, doing LODs manually is actually the most efficient way. Especially if you made the model and know where all the UV seams are. Just manually cut out extraneous edge loops, leave the seams alone.

    Where automated lod solutions come into play is when you need to do a lot of assets quickly, or whe free e the assets are so minor that issues of quality wouldn't be noticed.

    Still, it's good to learn to do it manually beforehand so you understand what to look for when trying out automated tools.

    As mentioned, polycount is where all the artist hangout and you'll find plenty of answers to questions like this with search of the forums tjere.
     
    Ryiah, angrypenguin and Martin_H like this.
  18. AndersMalmgren

    AndersMalmgren

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    2-3k is not that mutch if quality matches the count. Some examples from our game.

    32k revolver



    24k SMG


    I think the key is, get away with as low as the quality requires. LOD will do the rest.
     
  19. Leonetienne500

    Leonetienne500

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    Wow those are some awesome looking models. Thanks for the advice.

    Will definetily be looking into that
     
    AndersMalmgren likes this.