poly limit?

[super-truite 54]

I am a bit stuck with a model that is getting close to 20000 polys (way more if I "smooth" it) and I see that I am reaching the engine limit (the model doesn't load in game and an error message is displayed). Is there any chance this limit will increase in the final version of the game?

I saw on that old post: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?122180-arma-3-poly-limit that the limit

will be 20000-30000. Do someone has any reliable and recent source about that?

Also, I have a curiosity question for those familiar with game engine related issues: Why is there such a low poly limit while I can add a bunch of objects which are near the ~20000 limit close to each other in the editor without any FPS drop when I look at them? Doesn't that mean that the limit is a bit too strict and arbitrary?

[max power 21]

Also, I have a curiosity question for those familiar with game engine related issues: Why is there such a low poly limit while I can add a bunch of objects which are near the ~20000 limit close to each other in the editor without any FPS drop when I look at them? Doesn't that mean that the limit is a bit too strict and arbitrary?

Per object vertex normal buffer limit, or other similar limit. It's technical limitation. Dx10 shouldn't have the same limit and so we'll see what the exact limitations are latterly when the new tools come out.

[thedog88 4]

i cant wait for the new tools x.x but i believe for o2 its around 22-32k? im not sure anymore, been a while since i looked it up

[PuFu 4599]

i cant wait for the new tools x.x but i believe for o2 its around 22-32k? im not sure anymore, been a while since i looked it up

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?120471-Model-Requirements-for-ArmA3&p=1950430#post1950430

as said, for now the limit is in O2. I doubt the hard limit is the DX11 one this time, but it could at least be 64k (although by the looks of the existing BI models, it is more or less the same).

[super-truite 54]

Ok, thanks for the answers. I guess I will limit myself to something like 30-40000 polys for the moment, in 3ds and I'll wait for the new tools to polish my model. I hope it is safe to assume that we will see an improvement.

But I am not sure that the limit is set in O2, as I can import heavy models with ~100000 polys from 3ds max to O2 and save them as .p3d and it is only in the game that I see an error message ("could not load lalala.p3d. Too many vertices").

It doesn't look to me like a DX11 or DX10 limit either, since even for DX10, the limit would be around 60000 vertices (which is even above the number of vertices of the model I am playing around with and which is crashing).

All this is still very mysterious...

[Messiah 2]

May I play devils advocate and ask why any model in A3 would need to be 30-40,000, let alone 100,000 polys?

[giorgygr 61]

I really can't find "pros" by pushing the poly-count at it's limit.

None i know will notice if a model has 20k or 100k poly's-the only 'gain' will be... noticeable performance drop

*I also believe the 'unit' models has lots of poly's.

Yes..it's nice if you play a 5 vs 15 mission but it will NEVER allow you to have 200 players it 100 m radius.

Of course all the above are my 2 cents..but please feel free to correct me.

[super-truite 54]

I am afraid I would have to kill you if I were to disclose why I need that many polys :).

I know that for a soldier, or a vehicle, above 10-20k it's getting useless and unnoticeable ingame. For what I want to do, it looks already OK around the 20K limit, but I had to

give up some little details I wanted to add. So I wouldn't mind if the engine would allow me to add say 10 or 20k more polys.

[PuFu 4599]

May I play devils advocate and ask why any model in A3 would need to be 30-40,000, let alone 100,000 polys?

i would wonder the same...

[max power 21]

I was also wondering. It seems quite spendthrifty.

[Redphoenix 1540]

Ugh, so the modell I planned for my next mod needs a rip-down.

It's having 220.000+ polys D:

And I already wondered why I wasn't able to load the 3ds file into O2.....

[sakura_chan 9]

Poly limit is best managed with the use of multiple objects and proxies. The main .p3d really only needs the geometry, memory lods etc as well as any animated parts. Other than that, just put each part in its own proxy. I would assume the OP is building a ship, so you would have the main hull as one part, maybe the control tower as another and then all the details separate as well. Another trick is to use proxies for repeated geometry. lets say you were making a huge airplane like the IL-76. It has 20 wheels, and each wheel would have to have at least two hundred polygons to look round and smooth. 200 x 20 = 4000 polygons just for relatively low polygon wheels. In this case, simply make one wheel and attach it using 20 proxies. This frees up a ton of space when working on large projects.

[Redphoenix 1540]

Poly limit is best managed with the use of multiple objects and proxies. The main .p3d really only needs the geometry, memory lods etc as well as any animated parts. Other than that, just put each part in its own proxy. I would assume the OP is building a ship, so you would have the main hull as one part, maybe the control tower as another and then all the details separate as well. Another trick is to use proxies for repeated geometry. lets say you were making a huge airplane like the IL-76. It has 20 wheels, and each wheel would have to have at least two hundred polygons to look round and smooth. 200 x 20 = 4000 polygons just for relatively low polygon wheels. In this case, simply make one wheel and attach it using 20 proxies. This frees up a ton of space when working on large projects.

Thanks for the tip, we will look at this when we will start working.

btw: It's not a ship, it's actually a F-18B

[PuFu 4599]

Thanks for the tip, we will look at this when we will start working.

btw: It's not a ship, it's actually a F-18B

200K for a plane? Overkill..

Care to share a wireframe viewport?

Btw, there is no game rt dx engine out there supporting this sort of polygon count...

[Redphoenix 1540]

200K for a plane? Overkill..

Care to share a wireframe viewport?

Btw, there is no game rt dx engine out there supporting this sort of polygon count...

Yup, we know that and this is why I started to rip down some of it's nice modeled parts :(

The landing gears will be torn apart, so we just have the main hydraulic parts. The inside of the gear storage bay will be ripped apart, so just some hydraulic lines will be seen.

It's consuming up some time redoing it for the ArmA engine, but I don't think its a problem.

You might find this model on a famous 3D share-site, but the creator granted me his permission for using it.

[super-truite 54]

Unfortunately I am not making a ship as for this, the proxy trick would have worked... The issue is that I need to animate the whole thing and I guess this makes the separation in multiple objects of the model trickier...