Polycounts?
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Chandigar
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Polycounts?

Post by Chandigar »

So whats the ACTUAL optimal number of polys in a tile? I've heard 500 or something like that, which seems ridiculously low to me. Some other estimates also seem low and I'm wondering if thats just what the recommended limit was when NWN was released?

If so, then the current recommended polycount should be much higher what with the increase in average computer specs since then.

Another consideration too is upping the polycount for new tilesets in anticipation of porting them over to NWN2. I know that tiles aren't going to be able to be directly imported, but if you still have all the geometry saved somewhere, it should be just a matter of redoing some textures and collision detection and re-exporting, right?

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Post by Guest »

Chandigar wrote:So whats the ACTUAL optimal number of polys in a tile? I've heard 500 or something like that, which seems ridiculously low to me. Some other estimates also seem low and I'm wondering if thats just what the recommended limit was when NWN was released?

If so, then the current recommended polycount should be much higher what with the increase in average computer specs since then.

Another consideration too is upping the polycount for new tilesets in anticipation of porting them over to NWN2. I know that tiles aren't going to be able to be directly imported, but if you still have all the geometry saved somewhere, it should be just a matter of redoing some textures and collision detection and re-exporting, right?

My machine isn't high end anymore, and I'm hoping to upgrade soon. But is get some choppiness on models that go over 900 polys....I try to stay around 700 myself..it can sometimes be hard to do though..

I'm not holding my breath on being able to move alot of the geometry from nwn1 to nwn2...I'm even worried I might not be able to make custom contenat at all...I've used nwnmax to make everything so far...and unless someone puts in the time and effort to recreate it for nwn2, not sure what I'll do.

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Christopher
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Post by Christopher »

I don't remember where I grabbed this but here is a snipit.

Tile Poly Count:
400-500 maximum for terrain tiles
900 for feature tiles
1200 rare for a really complex edifice

Some Bioware Archive seaches might give you a better guide.

As to the transporting of current content to NWN2. I have some discussions by Adam Miller (PipBoy3000) in one of the other forums. Obsidian has stated that they are using plugin to Max not scripts. But most everything else is speculation and vague responces for Obsidian staff.

Chandigar
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Post by Chandigar »

racerblue wrote:My machine isn't high end anymore, and I'm hoping to upgrade soon. But is get some choppiness on models that go over 900 polys....I try to stay around 700 myself..it can sometimes be hard to do though..

I'm not holding my breath on being able to move alot of the geometry from nwn1 to nwn2...I'm even worried I might not be able to make custom contenat at all...I've used nwnmax to make everything so far...and unless someone puts in the time and effort to recreate it for nwn2, not sure what I'll do.
I think I've read somewhere that its mainly the inefficiencies in the engine that cause the choppiness rather than pure poly count.

As for nwnmax, its just an nwn tweaked version of Gmax if I recall correctly.. which means you should still be able to preserve the geometry for use in a 'naked' version of gmax (not 100% sure on this one). In theory, they'll still probably support gmax since thats the freebie modeler that most people easily have access to.

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Post by Chandigar »

Christopher wrote:I don't remember where I grabbed this but here is a snipit.

Tile Poly Count:
400-500 maximum for terrain tiles
900 for feature tiles
1200 rare for a really complex edifice

Some Bioware Archive seaches might give you a better guide.

As to the transporting of current content to NWN2. I have some discussions by Adam Miller (PipBoy3000) in one of the other forums. Obsidian has stated that they are using plugin to Max not scripts. But most everything else is speculation and vague responces for Obsidian staff.
hrmmm yea, those are some of the numbers I've been quoted too, but I'm wondeing where they're from.

Ideal numbers based on performance when nwn was first released?

Numbers based on what the engine itself can handle efficiently?

Or numbers based on performance on present day average systems?

As for porting over to NWN2... I don't think it really matters how they do their exports. Meshes are meshes are meshes in the end... it *should* be just a matter of applying their NWN2 specific modifiers and meshes as required but the base mesh should be the same. In theory.

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