Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL


Subject: How Much is Too Many Polygons for a Model?

Ragtopjohnny opened this issue on Jan 15, 2012 · 95 posts


Blackhearted posted Sun, 15 January 2012 at 11:50 AM

its too high poly if you have polygons that are wasted.

V4 is 70k polys, ~100k with hair. 

if you model a pair of shoes or a tank top for her, they shouldnt be 50k polys each.  that said, if an outfit consists of a highly detailed lace-up corset, boots with laces or a dozen buckles, etc - then polycount will go up. theres no right or wrong anser - just look at your mesh and ask yourself 'do these polys/edge loops need to be there?'. ie: are they necessary to give the final shape in Poser, or are they superfluous. can the detail be achieved with displacement maps/normal maps instead?

also keep in mind that displacement maps are not necessarily a no-brainer alternative to mesh detail.  in some cases rendering a 4096x4096 .TIFF displacement map on a model can use more resources than just adding the detail to the mesh.  it depends:  there is no universal right answer, you need to evaluate every mesh on its own.