Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
will be 5,000 polygons. On the other hand, if the game is designed to have up to 50
characters on the screen at one time, then the polygon budget for each character
will be 1,000 polygons. Often the artist doesn't come up with the polygon budget.
It is usually given to him by the project manager.
This example is a very simplistic view of determining a polygon budget. In actual
game development, there are many variables that we didn't take into account, such
as level-of-detail systems and important versus non-important characters. Artists
use a number of tricks to make the most of the polygons in their budgets. The
scope of this topic won't allow me to go into them, so it is best to just remember
to be as frugal with your polygons as possible.
Polygon Counter
3ds Max has a utility called the Polygon Counter that helps artists maintain poly-
gon budgets. This utility keeps track of the number of polygons in individual
objects and in the scene. It also gives the artist a graphic view of how close he or
she is to the polygon budget limits. The limits can be adjusted by the artist prior
to starting the modeling process.
Figure 6.8
Create a single polygon plane.
