The Importance of Resolution in CG - An Introduction to Computer Graphics for Artists - page 97

Table 7.5 Video game poly budgets
Poly budgets Character Prop Vehicle Terrain Architecture

Featured 20,000 5,000 20,000 1,000,000 25,000

Secondary 5,000 2,000 5,000 500,000 5,000

Incidental 2,500 500 2,000 150,000 500

Fig. 7.6 This character model has 8,919 triangles. This is low resolution for a prominent character
in a console game, but would be high resolution for a less prominent character. If LODs were used,
a series of models at about 5,000, 2,500, 1,000, and 500 triangles would be added (Render courtesy
of Arno Schmitz)

A more common standard is based on the rendering power of your computer, or
the game console and its real-time rendering software. Using this standard, an
average console video game can render anywhere from 12 to 50 million triangles a
second. If you take 20 million as a common number, at a frame rate of 60 frames
a second, then you are rendering 333,333 triangles per frame, or about as many
pixels as you have on an NTSC TV screen. Table 7.5 approximates the budget for
various types of game assets.

7.9 Level of Detail

Level of detail (LOD) refers to an optimization solution that relies on using multiple
versions of the same model in a project. Each version of the model is progressively
lower resolution, and is substituted for the next highest LOD of the model as it
crosses a pre-defi ned threshold distance from the camera (Fig. 7.6 ). Each model in