New Poly limit?

[tobinator 41]

Hello guys,

 

I heard that with dx11 the poly limit in arma is now raised. Is that true? If so, what's the new limit?

Thanks for you answers :D

 

Regards

 

Tobi

[da12thMonkey 1943]

I don't think anyone has worked out the exact hard limit yet, but I've seen a few people say they were able to import models with 100,000 faces

 

But the practical poly limits for models in the engine haven't changed. The fact that fewer Tanoa buildings have interiors in order to improve performance, and the fact that LOD transitions appear at closer distances now is testament to the fact that the game will run like shit if you have lots of high poly models and no optimisation of the meshes. The Apex weapon models are heavily optimised in their first resolution LOD compared to their view pilot LOD, and seem less detailed than previous Marksmen DLC weapons.

 

So don't be too excited by it. You should probably still aim to build things that are comparable to existing Arma assets in terms of detail and generally sit under the old vertex limit in their base configuration.

 

The extension of the poly limit seems to be more about removing the need for proxying a few extra ancillary items and weapon turrets on vehicles (especially the viewGunner LODs), rather than for adding shit loads of detail to the overall mesh.

[UK_Apollo 475]

The polygon limit changed in Techreport #26, Feb 18th, 2016.

 

"Binarize has been updated; the P3D binarization process now uses 32-bit vertex indices and now produces binarized models (P3D) at version 70. This means those models won't be usable in prior versions of the game which only support up to version 69. However, the newest version of the game supports previous model versions."

 

It was previously 15-bit (2^15, or roughly 32k polys), but has been increased to 32 bit (2^32 or 4.2 billion polys!!!).

 

But as da12th rightly points out, the game engine ability to handle polys hasn't necessarily changed to cope with massive poly objects, so the primary improvement for modders is the ability to include what would previously have been proxy objects into the main model, and thereby animate/hiddenSelectionTexture them.

[PuFu 4591]

The polygon limit changed in Techreport #26, Feb 18th, 2016.

 

"Binarize has been updated; the P3D binarization process now uses 32-bit vertex indices and now produces binarized models (P3D) at version 70. This means those models won't be usable in prior versions of the game which only support up to version 69. However, the newest version of the game supports previous model versions."

 

It was previously 15-bit (2^15, or roughly 32k polys), but has been increased to 32 bit (2^32 or 4.2 billion polys!!!).

 

But as da12th rightly points out, the game engine ability to handle polys hasn't necessarily changed to cope with massive poly objects, so the primary improvement for modders is the ability to include what would previously have been proxy objects into the main model, and thereby animate/hiddenSelectionTexture them.

vertex indices does NOT mean polygons

[UK_Apollo 475]

Yes true enough, but they are related, are they not?

So while it may not be 4.2 billion polys, but 4.2 billion vertex indices, would you agree that the upper limit on polys that binarize supports has massively increased since this change?

I test built a 120k poly object back in February to check - no problem. I think that is what the original poster is interested in.

[Delta Hawk 1829]

I guess a lot of crappy, stolen, high poly models are fixing to flood ArmA from everyone who is considers themselves a "3d artist" because they bought a model off turbosquid or rip them from GTA mods.  <_<   I kind of wish the poly limit wasn't increased but any whoos.

 

I actually made an extremely complicated and large ship.  Right now it's broken up in proxies.  What do I need to do to enable using the new polygon limit and what do I need to know as far as non DX11 users possibly playing with his model?

[das attorney 857]

edit: nvm - read post wrong

[x3kj 1247]

What do I need to do to enable using the new polygon limit and what do I need to know as far as non DX11 users possibly playing with his model?

size limits for geo LOD and roadway LOD are still the same, so you may have to keep the proxies for your ship - depending on size.

[road runner 4344]

I guess a lot of crappy, stolen, high poly models are fixing to flood ArmA from everyone who is considers themselves a "3d artist" because they bought a model off turbosquid or rip them from GTA mods.  <_<   I kind of wish the poly limit wasn't increased but any whoos.

 

I actually made an extremely complicated and large ship.  Right now it's broken up in proxies.  What do I need to do to enable using the new polygon limit and what do I need to know as far as non DX11 users possibly playing with his model?

What's wrong with people buying models from places like Turbosquid? I don't think anyone who has done so has made a claim they're a 3d artist!!

 

You might just want t take a look at a lot of weapons addons, that have come from well known addon makers, some of their models have come from 3rd party sources, some of these guys ARE 3D artists.

As for the stolen and ported stuff, you'll find that it does get reported to the mods on a very regular basis, and if that addon maker cannot explain where their models came from, they get shit canned and their addon removed. 

[da12thMonkey 1943]

What's wrong with people buying models from places like Turbosquid?

 

He's commenting more on the fact that 99% of the time, people buying models don't bother to optimise them for Arma in any way, because they don't have proper understanding of creating 3D assets for games and just assume that all models are created equally.

 

Models available from 3D vendors are by and large not game-ready since they are normally targeted at other forms of media (selling 3D assets to TV production companies, print media, marketing companies etc. is far more lucrative than selling to video game hobbyists), but most buyers are not aware of that.

 

The end results being shittily made addons, and a lack of interest in learning how to do things properly (people just want a model ingame to consider it "job done"), is what is bad about it.

 

There are people around that use models from Turbosquid but make significant effort to make them work for Arma - Firewill's planes and NightIntruder's CH-46 are examples of that.

They don't get heat for it, because they approach the task with prior understanding of how a game-ready model should be, choose the projects wisely (not just get whatever model looks coolest in the store), and actually put significant work in to convert the commercial model to something that fits Arma's requirements. Improving upon the original model in significant ways with newly built geometry.

[road runner 4344]

Don't disagree on that part, it would have been better he had explained it like you have....

It's not just a case of buying a model, and slapping it into the game though, as you have rightly said, there's work to be done, it's not always that simple, you have to write that config, you have to get it weighted, you have to make the rvmats work, that's not something your average Arma3 player can do, these things require a degree of knowledge, whilst Delta Hawks intention may well have been well intended, it came across as a bit condescending ;)

 

At the end of the day, you can tell if it's good or shitty, and if there's shitty addons, I just don't use them.

[Delta Hawk 1829]

Just tested the new poly limit

 

 

This excites me more than Apex.

 

 

Don't disagree on that part, it would have been better he had explained it like you have....

It's not just a case of buying a model, and slapping it into the game though, as you have rightly said, there's work to be done, it's not always that simple, you have to write that config, you have to get it weighted, you have to make the rvmats work, that's not something your average Arma3 player can do, these things require a degree of knowledge, whilst Delta Hawks intention may well have been well intended, it came across as a bit condescending ;)

 

At the end of the day, you can tell if it's good or shitty, and if there's shitty addons, I just don't use them.

 

To be honest some "modders" in some communities frustrate me.  Not so much with the ArmA community though.  We're pretty tight.  I don't want to go into the reasons why they frustrate me because this isn't the place for me to start a rant, even though it may give some context to my comment.  However, I feel you might think my rants or frustration could be directed to you.  I'm not sure why you would feel this way but I can ensure you they are not directed towards you.  As far as I know you work hard to create your own assets.  I wouldn't blame you if you use small parts from other people as long as you give credit.

[road runner 4344]

Just tested the new poly limit

 

 

This excites me more than Apex.

 

 

 

To be honest some "modders" in some communities frustrate me.  Not so much with the ArmA community though.  We're pretty tight.  I don't want to go into the reasons why they frustrate me because this isn't the place for me to start a rant, even though it may give some context to my comment.  However, I feel you might think my rants or frustration could be directed to you.  I'm not sure why you would feel this way but I can ensure you they are not directed towards you.  As far as I know you work hard to create your own assets.  I wouldn't blame you if you use small parts from other people as long as you give credit.

No sir, not felt they're directed at me at all, I know I'm no artiste :D I'm more of a dabbler, I used to be reasonable in 3dsmax, but prefer texturing, and doing an Ikea style of shopping, ie get several bits from various sources and throw them together to see if they work or not, I always seek the original authors permission, and very thankful to these guys, for basically letting me experiment with their stuff.

Trust me, I know poor addons, and sometimes I cringe and think....why? and then give myself a reality check and think, at least that person is trying, compared to a lot who critique, but never create.

So no worries, I never for once thought it was personal, there's lots of top quality addon makers out there, I don't take myself that seriously, I'd like to be able to do more, but it's really just a hobby :D

[Delta Hawk 1829]

I'm glad you're not taking it personally.  You give credit for the assets you use.  A lot of people don't and it infuriates me.

 

It's good you don't take it too serious.  I would encourage you to open 3ds max, download and install mudbox, and learn how to do high poly to low poly.  You seem very focused on just equipment, which is really turning out to be a gem in modding ArmA3. :)

[road runner 4344]

I have z-brush, substance painter, Maya/Max, Blender so plenty of 3d software, that and thousands of hours worth of video tutorials mate, so no excuses really. :D

[nodunit 397]

For shits n giggles I ran a test on my helo, the true count with the interior view cockpits (that is all buttons, knobs, plates, rivets, etc in 3D) symbology, and radome came to a grand total of one hundred thousand triangles. 
For giggles I combined all of this and tried it ingame, it worked flawless...so I added a sphere, of which contained eight thousand triangles per, it flew just fine...I tested it in a scenario with multiple helicopters, and then a combat scenario as depicted here.
http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee200/NodUnit/20160712204647_1_zpsomqqddl7.jpg through it all the only loss in FPS was when the birds first opened fire and were going down, yet through it all the frame rate was surprisingly smooth and keep in mind that is 1.7 million triangles worth of helo alone.

I decided to amp the tests up by adding sphere after sphere after sphere and watch my frame rate...the degredation didn't start occuring until I reached this point of hideousness.
http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee200/NodUnit/20160712220331_1_zpsna5ggbxc.jpg32 spheres which equated to the single helicopter reaching three hundred and fifty six thousand triangles.  It still ran but the game was feeling it.

It appears as though the game was able to render more polygons of different units just fine but when you start putting all of that into one unit then it starts chugging...a squad of helo's vs the one, however I was able to push up to 200K without much in the way of frame loss, it was when I entered 250 and 300 that it started asking me to stop.

Of course I wouldn't recommend going that far and if you want to push into 160K+ then you better save often if you work in O2 as it appears to have a tendency to crash if you perform actions too quickly.


I would still like to encourage people to do more with less, we can have more which opens all sorts of doors for us artists but if we can get away with adding something to a normal map as opposed to geometry then we should do that, it also adds the benfit of making the detail more visible with the baked normals with the whole edge highlights, plus theres no point in modelling the treads on an aircraft wheel, more =/= better. (at least when its not a particular unit view ;) roll on HP interiors)

[Jackal326 1158]

For shits n giggles I ran a test on my helo, the true count with the interior view cockpits (that is all buttons, knobs, plates, rivets, etc in 3D) symbology, and radome came to a grand total of one hundred thousand triangles. 

For giggles I combined all of this and tried it ingame, it worked flawless...so I added a sphere, of which contained eight thousand triangles per, it flew just fine...I tested it in a scenario with multiple helicopters, and then a combat scenario as depicted here.

http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee200/NodUnit/20160712204647_1_zpsomqqddl7.jpg through it all the only loss in FPS was when the birds first opened fire and were going down, yet through it all the frame rate was surprisingly smooth and keep in mind that is 1.7 million triangles worth of helo alone.

I decided to amp the tests up by adding sphere after sphere after sphere and watch my frame rate...the degredation didn't start occuring until I reached this point of hideousness.

http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee200/NodUnit/20160712220331_1_zpsna5ggbxc.jpg32 spheres which equated to the single helicopter reaching three hundred and fifty six thousand triangles.  It still ran but the game was feeling it.

It appears as though the game was able to render more polygons of different units just fine but when you start putting all of that into one unit then it starts chugging...a squad of helo's vs the one, however I was able to push up to 200K without much in the way of frame loss, it was when I entered 250 and 300 that it started asking me to stop.

Of course I wouldn't recommend going that far and if you want to push into 160K+ then you better save often if you work in O2 as it appears to have a tendency to crash if you perform actions too quickly.

I would still like to encourage people to do more with less, we can have more which opens all sorts of doors for us artists but if we can get away with adding something to a normal map as opposed to geometry then we should do that, it also adds the benfit of making the detail more visible with the baked normals with the whole edge highlights, plus theres no point in modelling the treads on an aircraft wheel, more =/= better. (at least when its not a particular unit view ;) roll on HP interiors)

 

Plus the cockpit view (presumably the viewpilot/viewgunner LODs) are only rendered when the player is sat in those respective slots...So the only thing you really added were the spheres. Unless of course you added the cockpit to the regular resolution LODs as well...

[nodunit 397]

Plus the cockpit view (presumably the viewpilot/viewgunner LODs) are only rendered when the player is sat in those respective slots...So the only thing you really added were the spheres. Unless of course you added the cockpit to the regular resolution LODs as well...

I did, we had to use a more optimized cockpit at the time because the pilot and gunner view had to get a proxy for the canopy because polycount, so probably around 30K.

For the test I decided "I'm just going to try and murder my computer" and tossed the pilot visual cockpit as well as the co pilot, and all of the instrument symbology which gets up there as well...everything possible and mashed it all together.   I'm impressed at how well the game ran with the inclusion of all that was going on, even moreso considering that particular helo is so script heavy.

It really is impressive how many polygons the RV engine can handle and not bog down, heck it even does a great job with textures too all things considering.

Now if only the engine could somehow get past the 60km render and collision limit.

[scotg 204]

On 7/13/2016 at 6:47 AM, da12thMonkey said:

... But the practical poly limits for models in the engine haven't changed....

So, for a character, this practical limit would be...?