Can CS Source handle this model? Created 8 years ago2016-10-21 21:21:43 UTC by ZPhugeFan

I'm making a player model for CS Source and while I could try to reduce the detail in some areas the total triangles count is at around 30k. Can the game engine handle that many polies on a player model, or do I need to get rid of some parts?

The engine can probably support it on a technical level, but source character models, especially ones from the time CS:S was developed in, tend to not exceed 4-8K polies.

I'd recommend you save your high-res model, and bake a normal map from it down to a low-poly version of it.

That's what I'm planning to do. The model had 2 mil triangles after initial modeling and now I managed to retopoligize it down to 30k. But I guess I need to go even lower

Ok. Managed to get it down to 21k, but I don't think I can lower the polies any further. Screw it, I'm gonna go with this.

Make a simpler mesh and bake the normals from the more detailed one?

That's what I'm doing. My original mesh has 2 milion triangles. The simple one has 21 000 triangles.

I feel I'm losing the form of the character when going even lower. He becomes too squarish and angular.

He becomes too squarish and angular.

Are you serious about that? Because low-poly models don't usually mean low quality:Picture taken from here.

That's a low poly model (I think it's less than 400 polys), yet it still looks like it has 10 times more than that.

He´s right. But that quality and good looking aspect is because of the textures.

This model only has 637 polys, all thanks to the texturizing. Also, can you believe that the previous version has 904 polys instead? Also the second version has all its tentacles when the v1.0 has only 10.I always made a model in clay of the model I want to do, then I divide it into square sectors, which, lately, will be divided in triangles. After it I made the projection into paper and start optimizing the mesh.

So I saved 300 polys. Easy?, well, maybe not, but it´s a lot of fun!! ^^

I don´t have any of those clay models because I recycle the clay for my son.

How about some screen shots so we can see exactly what's going on?

Yes!, please post it!! I have made models with far less than 21K polys and they have a hell of a lot of detail... :/

Wow this was pretty dead for a while and all of a sudden 4 replies
I suppose you all have a very good point, BUT I'm racing with a deadline here and if I have to go and change the mesh (retopologize again) that means I'm gonna have to UV map again, bake the normal and ao maps again and paint texture again. That's a lot of agains
How am I gonna do all of that, have a good amount of time for rigging and compiling the model before 30th of September?

And I don't feel comfortable showing unfinished work, but I'll do it this time: Here's the high poly mesh (2,5 mil tris) and the low poly one (21 500 tris)

What´s the problem? It looks gorgeous!! Of course you will loose the clothes details, but you can solve them with proper skinning of the model.Also, adding little pieces, that only will add a few polys, you can make details for the mask, boots and belt and it will look more gourgeous.

I think your work is great, it is only a matter to choose what detail you want ot add or what detail finally will be seen to decide to erase it or not.

There are details needed to make the model as it should be, another ones could be discarded, others need to be modified and be replaced with textures, more precisely, with ALPHA textures.

Look, there´s a pic of the last model I have done.At the right it´s the original from the movie that has, more or less, 200K polys, maybe more, and to the left is my model, which only has 14000 poly. I have re-done the model discarding a lot of detail, and poly by poly, vertex by vertex, I have finally arrived to this version.

It´s sometimes boring and frustrating, but the first thing you must have in mind when modelling is what are your limits, then use as much techniques and tricks you know to make the model look as you wish without making it un-handeable by the hardware because it´s not the same a low poly model moved with a P2 with a 16 MB GPU than moved with a Core i3 with a 1GB GPU, the first system sometimes will struggle while the second will move a hundred of them at 90 fps.

But you see I'm not good at the texturing part. That's why I always try to make my models detailed in the mesh, because I know I can't make them detailed in the textures.

I'll see what i can do with it and maybe try to reduce the tri count to 14-15k. I'll get rid of the physical wrinkles on the boots, hoping that the normal map will provide enough detail there. And I can also try to simplify the hands, head and waist area, but I don't wanna lose those belt accessories. It will look too plain and dull without them.

Texturing is not so difficult. There are web sites with free textures that will cover all the detail you need, simply add in your credits.txt the origin of them, of course ;).

EDIT: of course, textures like the ones on DOOM3 and HL2 require a different approach, in fact, I don´t know how to make textures that, on those games, have bump mapping and all that stuff.

Update on the model. Went from 21.5k to 15k tris
I think it's a significant progress from what it was when I started the topic- 30k tris

Reducing it to half what it was seems pretty good to me. I have some ideas of how to get it even lower- to 12-13k tris, but time's pressing on me and I have to keep deadlines. So I will go with that.
Thanks everyone! Expect the finished thing on GameBanana.com right on time for Halloween (if I don't mess things up that is )

Nice job, that's a pretty nice optimization. It's time to wait until Halloween then.

Good luck!, and, please, keep us updated!

Well, I failed the deadline

My bad luck came into play again and few bad things happened in my life, keeping me away from my project. I still plan to finish it, so you can expect to see the finished thing on GameBanana.com sometime next week. My account has the same name as here. Thanks all for comments and help with optimization.

Let's close this thread.

Sorry to hear that. :(. I hope all will be ok soon