Polygon count

Destron · Post by **Destron** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 5:26 pm

Hi all,

I'm currently modeling weapons for my game, and I was wondering:
Are non-visible "clipping" edges, verts, and faces part of the polygon count?
In my current gun model, I have a lot of intersecting objects. Just want to know if it doesn't matter or it's bad for my poly count.

darksmaster923 · Post by **darksmaster923** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 5:31 pm

non visible sides are still rendered so they are part of the poly count. if the gun has no animation that exposes the non visible side you can delete the entire non visible side

Destron · Post by **Destron** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 5:39 pm

darksmaster923 wrote:if the gun has no animation that exposes the non visible side you can delete the entire non visible side

Yeah, I've heard of that.

thanks for teh info ^^

Juutis · Post by **Juutis** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 7:56 pm

I'm not sure about this, but I think that backfaces (the backs of polygons) aren't rendered and they don't affect the framerate.
I'd like a verification from someone that knows better than me.

zany_001 · Post by **zany_001** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 8:40 pm

yes thats true,its called back face culling.I dont think any 3D game engine doesnt have that,because then everything would be rendered,so the entire map could only have 100000 or so polys.

Post by **Jay** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 11:50 pm

well that's true, they are not rendered, but they still have to be transformed by the graphics card/cpu, so you can see where the backside is and then you don't have to render the backside anymore. This gives a little speed benefit, because all the later thinghs like texture mapping, lighting etc. don't have to be done, but it's not like the polygon was never there.

It's always better to have unseen polygons cut away before they are even transformed. This can be done in any modelling prgram.

Normally, it wouldn't be such a big problem, because nowadays graphics cards are so ultra fast at transforming polygons, that they can transform (theorethically! also i said transform, and not render) hundreds of millions of polygons in one second (even the old geforce 2 comes to 20 millions). But with RF, this brings us nothing, because we don't have any hardware T&L (=Transform and Lighting, the name already says it), so the polys make more impact on the frame rate.

I think somebody here once said: The fastest polygons are the ones that don't exist.

darksmaster923 · Post by **darksmaster923** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 1:40 am

ooh we should add that in the mystic game design proverbs.