dim3 Forum

I'd like to start by introducing myself. I am a member that joined quite a while ago, and I have been lurking around here for a little while. I'm a very good photoshop artist and a pretty good modeler. Now, onto my question....

I am considering making a multiplayer action FPS. This game is going to focus a lot on the unique weapons and team-based action and strategy. I have several ideas written down / stored in my head, and now I think it is time to acaually start .

Soon, I am going to start working on a player model. But first, I just want a pretty general idea of how much polys this thing should have. Is 1600 polys reasonable, or too much? this game's max is going to at least be 16 players, so there are going to be some moments where you see 22400 polys on screen plus a few different textures. I imagine that might lag. However, I do not know much on the subject, so I am asking you guys for a good amount. Keep in mind I want the games presentation values to be realitivly high (AKA, I want this to have good graphics), so this should be able to run on middle-of-the-road macs (like mine ) without any fancy effects (bump or specular mapping), and on pretty modern computers with all the effects.

So, what is a good poly count for an animated player model that will probably have at least 3 different textures on it?

Somewhere between 1000 and 2000 should be fine. Put as much detail as possible into the texture.

Kind of depends. Can you make a play model that looks good at 1500 polygons? I would suggest you put a max of 1500 polys on your character models, and NEVER go over it. that way you know exactly what you have, and you'll know your limits as well.

I agree with Alex and Bink, at or below 1500 is good. I'm a low poly person so I usually stay at or below 1000 but if you can model better at 1500 go ahead.

I stay below 700 for characters, and no higher then 1000 for weapons+hands. And that's because I'd rather have more low poly characters and fewer high poly characters.

well, I'm going for the "fewer" aproach, because there are only going to be two different characters and a bunch of weapons [EDIT: a few vehicals as well] (scenery and levels as well, obvously)

Would you say that the same amount as a character is okay for a weapon-in-hand?

It really depends on your game and the kind of machine you want it to run on.
If you want detailed characters: Go for 1.5k - 2.0k polys for each char/first person weapon model.
If you want it to run on a G4 or something that's even older, go for 1.0k - 1.5k max.
I'd use about the same polycount for FPS weapons and characters, but a lower count for 3rd person weapon models.

I'm giving myself a max of 1000 polys, because i'm using alot of segments in my map.