I realize people try to optimize textures/polies so that they make the games' FPS increase, but what about those people who have REALLY good gfx cards that can handle it?

Would it be a challange for any talanted modeller out there to make some us or axis infantry that looked REALLY freakin' good, and didn't hesitate to make the model around 10,000 polies with about 20 512x512 textures? I mean, it always seems like it's not that hard for the best of the best to do, they do it, but then they optimize it so that people with lower gfx cards can handle it.

So, would this be possible for anyone? Would anyone be able to make a model so detailed in polies and texture that it looked like it belonged in a v_model?

I don't think it's so much a matter of whether the card could handle it as it is the engine. I mean, I have a 10000 poly USP hackjob I use in CS, and it does seem to drop my fps just a bit, though I haven't actually checked net graph...now imagine up to 16 10,000 poly models running around with tons of high res textures, 32 if someone actually made a pack for both teams.... if some of the theories that have been passed around about how HL renders models now are true, that would be HELL on the engine, and that's a problem that a powerful computer can't fix...Atleast that's my understanding...

I say model what you want, those of you who CAN enjoy high poly models do so, those who cant, HA ha, get a better comp.

http://www.dragoonhome.de/promo_mg42.jpg

Truth is, no model NEEDS to be that many polys if the textures are good enough. Its more efficient to put little details in the textures themselves than have hundreds of tiny polygons.

Player models at max would be 3500-4000 because you'd only see detail close up, at a distance you'd be drawing 80% of your poly's coming out at 1 pixel in size.

- Jed

That's true for player models, about weapon models i think around 6000 is the top (needed)

and indeed, if you want to make the model cloths looks real you play with light and shade you don't acctualy model every small cuff, same for his body, face... etc...

Originally posted by Knives
http://www.dragoonhome.de/promo_mg42.jpg

woah, what game is that for?

Yeah i wondered too... looks great.

Originally posted by Knives
http://www.dragoonhome.de/promo_mg42.jpg

MG 42 13122 Polygons
Including shells with 690 polygons
and a sling with 60 polygons.

:D

Thats the equivilent of 10 DoD Cromwell tanks... :eek:

- Jed

lmfao..............

screenshot of mg42 please :D

That MG42 would kick ass for some POV or 3Dmax renders :D

That MG 42 licks a lot of nuts. Its modeling took quite a lot of effort, and ithats not the part i hate. Those textures blow. And as for your 10,000 poly player models, yell at the Dev team for giving us submodels. Now, we can no longer fit that much detail into player models.

is it possible to dl that kick ass of an mg ?

Originally posted by Devin Kryss
And as for your 10,000 poly player models, yell at the Dev team for giving us submodels. Now, we can no longer fit that much detail into player models.

Why's it the DoD teams fault? The specification for MDL format states a maximum for 20,000 poly's per MDL file and its Valve that code the HL engine not the DoD team. Submodels doesn't really have much to do with limiting how much detail you can add.

- Jed

You are all still forgetting one vital thing: Half-Life animations are fairly simple, and the joint assignment is made for low poly models, i.e. one joint per vertex, no blanding, you could make a rediculously wasteful high-poly model, but it would look terrible on the DoD skeleton. Their joints would still be distorted, more so in fact than the low poly models, especially during animations with extreme fields of movement like jumping or crouching.

Now matter how powerful your computer is, the simple fact is that Half-Life was not made for such high poly-counts, and will never be able to properly use them.

As for the mg42, most of the detail is in the bullets, which is pretty wasteful for something like Day of Defeat. The bullets could be cut down to 50 polys and still look really good, the same is true for a lot of that model I'm sure. It wasn't made to be put in Day of Defeat, and if it was they did a very poor job of it. Higher poly doesn't always mean a better model, there is a point of deminishing returns.

Lets not forget that there is a max amount of polygons allower per reference smd. If im not mistaken, its between the area of 1000-1500 polies. Thus, submodels limit detail.

Cant we all just wait for the ever elusive HL2 to get ooour high poly every thing meshed all together real physics game?!?!? just a few more months?!?!? o wait next summer!!!?!? o wait its moved to a later date....damn...

Originally posted by Trp. Jed
Why's it the DoD teams fault? The specification for MDL format states a maximum for 20,000 poly's per MDL file and its Valve that code the HL engine not the DoD team. Submodels doesn't really have much to do with limiting how much detail you can add.

- Jed

I've compiled a 21288 poly model before just to see if it was possible, it worked fine (with about 8 reference smd's...). It used external textures tho, meaning it technically was 2 .mdl files...

The most polies per reference is in the region of 3000-3500, it seems to vary. Also, I recall reading somewhere that the HL engine crashes out if more than 200,000 polies are displayed onscreen at any one time.

Dragoon's MG42 was one of a few ultra-high-poly CS models he made a while back, www.dragoonhome.de is his site. They all just used hackjob skins IIRC, and none really looked as good as they should have.

The geometry limit in smd's is based on the vertex count, not triangles, which explains the variation in max-triangles that you can have per refrence.