Question on polygon count

[Ydoow]

There\'s another thread asking on this, but I\'m a little confused on what others use in their models.

I made a fuel tank using Blender. Starting with a Cylinder, I didn\'t adjust how many vertices it used. The default is 32.

How many would be overkill? I know there\'s smooth lighting, which for the most part makes 32 looks decent. Not perfectly circular under certain lighting, but good.

I don\'t want to waste my time on making a model that uses too many making my time wasted

2000 polygons is what I read as to be a good limit. Is that per part? Per ship?

Mine has 48 faces, and there\'s a number to the left of that by 'Blender', 261

not sure if that\'s a poly count or something else.

But anyway, I\'d appreciate some community feedback/tips

[rkman]

I can\'t answer your question conclusively because i have essentially no experience with KSP part creation. But i do have some experience with mesh creation for games, so i\'ll comment because i think this is an important issue that does not get enough attention.

Some people seem to think polycount is not an issue with current PCs and graphics cards. Reality is that every game platform has a poly budget, and one better does not exceed it.

As a general rule, use as few polies as you can get away with for visual quality.

The game itself is more likely to use as many polies as it can get away with performance-wise, but individual parts have no control over the total amount of polies so the polycount of individual parts must be conservative.

High detail models are not typically necessary in KSP because in the normal cause of playing the game one does not see the parts from such a short distance that those details matter. It\'s different than an RPG or tactical shooter where the player gets up close and personal with the in-game models.

Not perfectly circular under certain lighting, but good.

I\'d say that\'s the criteria that matters. 'good' is generally good enough.

2000 polygons is what I read as to be a good limit. Is that per part? Per ship?

I\'m pretty sure that\'s per part. But it would be a maximum that should only be met for relatively large complex parts.

There might be exceptions but that\'s at the discretion of the game designer, not of modders.

Mine has 48 faces, and there\'s a number to the left of that by 'Blender', 261

not sure if that\'s a poly count or something else.

In Blender there\'s an info section in the topmost header bar. 'Fa:' is the face-count which is synonymous with poly-count.

Note that in Blender a face can be a tris or quad, i could be wrong but i think in KSP it\'s always tris.

[Absolution]

I apologize for the resurrecting of an oldish thread but it appears to be the most recent concerning the topic I am interested in and starting a new thread seems even less polite.

I hear 2000 polygons per part is a good standard based on the two posts in this thread but the statements lack conviction. So I ask you experienced modelers: is 2000 polys a fair number to shoot for?

I understand the concepts that make such a number very situation dependent I am just looking for confirmation that this 'warm and fuzzy' number is appropriate.

[Tosh]

1) IRRC cylindrical stock parts have 24 faces.

2) 2000 polygons could be a good aim to shoot for, but there\'s nothing bad in having a part of 3-4K polys. At my experience, more than 5K might be a bit too much (though still does not hinder game\'s performance).

[Phoxtane]

I hear 2000 polygons per part is a good standard based on the two posts in this thread but the statements lack conviction. So I ask you experienced modelers: is 2000 polys a fair number to shoot for?

It\'s a good starting point. From what I\'ve heard though, there aren\'t any noticeable performance hits even with low-end machines.

[NovaSilisko]

I try to make mine as low-poly as I can - with normal maps, it\'s even easier since you can pack a lot of details into a very simple mesh!

[CardBoardBoxProcessor]

for poly counts there are several tricks to making things lower polies