Poly count
 

Ok I am not sure exactly how to phrase this, but how do you know when your model has enough (or too many, or too few for that matter) poly's? I ask because I have seen some INCREDIBLE images of low poly high detail models in the gallery. For my first test I have been making a "sci-fi tropical" scene. I started with an "alien palm tree". Each of the leaves is a little over 16k poly's. This seems really high. Unfortunately I am not sure how to reverse this.

You can see the palm WIP at:
http://www.delphihome.com/gallery/lightwave

On a similiar, but completely unrelated topic :rolleyes:. How do a "render" in wireframe mode? For one of my shots I want to fade from a green wireframe to the rendered shot, and I know how to blend them post render in Photoshop. But I can't figure out how to get a wireframe render??

For you first question you should model with Sub-D's Try the Mclaren tutorial or better yet the Strat tutorial. There are also teniques for low poly modeling but im no expert on that never really did any low poly modeling. With Sub-D's you can dial up or down the number of polys depending on how smooth you want it to be.

For your second question go to render options then render mode drop down list, and choose wireframe.

Well that is entirely too easy :)

Thanks for the info. Been playing with the settings for an hour now... This is way too much fun.

I was using Sub-D's, but I obviously don't understand how to use them correctly. Going to have to do the Strat tutorial to get a good grasp.

Thanks again

Ok, I'm looking into the Strat tutorial now. But in the meantime, is there any way to "reverse" the freezing I did? If you look at the palm at:
http://www.delphihome.com/gallery/album08

you will see that the poly count is beyond extreme. How do I "simplify" the model after I did the freeze?

Well, unfortunately a freeze is a one way operation so you're more than a little stuck in regards to a straight undo.

However, if you look on the construct tab in Modeller, you will find a number of tools to help reduce the polygon count namely:

• Merge Polygons
• Reduce Polygons
• quemLOSS2

You'll need to refer to the LW docs and resort to a little trial and error in order to obtain the best results (quemmLOSS2 can be particularly destructive).

A quick search in the flay plugins database using the keyword 'reduce' also turned up the following:

• Decimate 2
• quemLOSS3
• Polygon Cruncher

Hope this helps...

Many thanks for the tips... Did some playing and got the count to around 700 with no noticeable difference in image... But now playing with 10 copies on the screen doesn't kill my machine :)

I'm curious about the sweet spot for poly count! Those low-poly, high-detail models in the gallery are amazing, and I wouldn't have guessed they were low-poly at first. My 16k poly alien palm tree leaf sounds crazy high though. Maybe there's a way to optimize it? Also, figuring out how to render in wireframe mode would be awesome for that green wireframe to final render transition I have planned. Even if I have to do some post-processing magic in Photoshop, at least getting the wireframe render would be a big discussion board post writing services help!