how do I know if my model has too many polygons for a game

You test it in you engine, in a high polycount scene.

Alternative google: %gameenginename% average polycount per character.

File: flashlight2.png (134KB, 1350x715px) Image search: [Google]

134KB, 1350x715px

>>539858
id say as a benchmark under 60,000 for a full body. lora from the newish tomb raider game runs at 40,000 faces. although as a test in unity it lags pretty bad. i have a really low poly model at 1,000 faces for setting up animation rigs. also your eyes are a bit far apart but the rest an't bad mate

File: head.png (98KB, 860x563px) Image search: [Google]

98KB, 860x563px

head are difficult....

Depends on your game. Do you have 1000 or 1 characters on screen at the same time? Do you use any LOD mechanics?

>>539858
you mean for a next gen type of game?
50-100k tris is becoming the standard here
ryse, the order, infamous all were hitting 100k, uncharted 4 apperently has 90k for lod 0 and much lower for gameplay
still 25-50k is a safe bet, still ill depend on your game

also you have yet to make a character yet alone retopo .... so your questioon is poinrtless

>>539858
Modern AAA games currently render about maximum 10 million tris per frame. But it's always best to go as low as you can.

Modern Characters with LODs can go from 5k to 100k.

It's really too difficult to answer, since it all depends on what hardware you target, what engine, what kind of game, etc.

Different hardware will be capable of different things

Different engines will allow you to use different techniques to e.g. simplify characters as they are further away, and have different costs associated with different gadgets you'll have on your characters (hair rendering, the skinning, maybe cloth physics, SSS shaders, etc)

Different games will call for a different # of characters to be on-screen at the same time, different levels of realism, have different budgets for different things, etc.

If you can make it very detailed and then bake it down to a simpler base-mesh, then you're pretty much ready for anything though.

>>539858
Export to engine, run with full animation scripts and all physics.
Check for FPS above 60 in a desktop.
Enemies who flood the screen are usually lighter than one model bosses.

File: hair.png (171KB, 583x493px) Image search: [Google]

171KB, 583x493px

is it really necassary to make such a great amount of verticles for such hair?

also rate it please

>>540126
no, u can use bigger polygons and alpha maps, and for the face, if u r noob, is better sculpt and then retopo with some model with good topology as reference

>>539930
ayy lmao

>>539930
Head is easy. Learn vitruvian scale and fuck around with limb ratios so you have a good reference. Then lots of topology drafts.

>>540126
Not really. Good topology and textures can cover a bit.

File: lowhigh.jpg (99KB, 1280x812px) Image search: [Google]

99KB, 1280x812px

>>539858
I still use box modeling for my characters, and keep things as simple as possible, adding polygonal details where it actually matters.

I know modern vidya can have over 40k quads on a character, but I find most of that a waste. You can easily compensate with good texture work and normal-maps.

>>540172
>I know modern vidya can have over 40k quads on a character, but I find most of that a waste.
Yeah, since you cant use them ...
>You can easily compensate with good texture work and normal-maps.
No you cant

Everything has a limit, and while you can get away with a lot on simple characters, the more complex they get they more the illusion breaks apart.
Clothing, strong folds, good looking hair, close ups of the face, shit like this just requires a lot of polies.
Your picture is a perfect example of what happens when you try to bake in strongly offset geometry on flat planes.
The folds look like shit, and i dont mean the bad high poly work here, i mean you just look wrong, flat and lack any depth to them.

Normal maps work best on small frequency detail, fabric patterns, skin pores and wrinkles,smaller muscle groups, not to establish larger forms.

Otherwise you are ending up with 2003, doom 3 quality models.

>>540169
>head is easy
its literally the hardest part to get right

File: MGS-PW MSF Olive.png (234KB, 1005x1029px) Image search: [Google]

234KB, 1005x1029px

>>540174
>No you cant
I disagree.
A great topology + great textures = great results.
I'm especially fond of the Konami's low-poly models of their early 00s PS2 titles, and the latter PSP games.

File: frank-tzeng-u4-nadine-ingame-1.jpg (473KB, 1920x1142px) Image search: [Google]

473KB, 1920x1142px

>>540261
yeah, with some good topology you can make even models like this...
100 tris is all you need to make this hair, right?

and a shocking remainder its not year 2000, but 2017

>>540275
thats not realtime hair right? if so what kind of magic is this?

File: 2732031-289650_screenshots_2014-11-11_00014.jpg (502KB, 1920x1080px) Image search: [Google]

502KB, 1920x1080px

>>540276
the magic of not being from 15 years ago?
even shitty games like unity or tomb rider have nice looking hair now

also what do you mean how?
omni directional baked shadow map with transparency turned on
only most outer strand are actual 3d geometry, mid section are standard hair flat planes
a very simple post texture based sss shader
some vertex based material variation to break up the repeating of a handful of identical strands
a screen based fake hair highlight that simulates transparency, some simplified model on a very simple but invisble mesh that just wraps color around corners
albedo, spec, normal on top and you are done

its not rocket science, also im pretty sure uncharted devs did a siggraph presentation of how they did it, and if not they were at zsummit and did one but they just glossed over everything to fit into 60 min

>>540281
That hair looks horrible.

>>540281
Is there a breakdown of that process ? The nadine ross model you posted seem to have fucktons of polygons in that hair

>>540175
The whole body is hard to get right.