Poly Count Question?

OK guys got a question
I've made the jump from structures to rolling stock in TSM and am currently working on a center coupola NE caboose used by the CGW/B&M & NH,the car is nearly complete save for roof walks,end ladders,hand brake assemblies,side grabs and the second marker lamp.
As it stands now the hack is about 7,900 polys and will more than likely top out in the 10,000 + range.
My question, What is the limit on polys? and will my estimated count cause a problem?
Thanks in advanceGary S

"Some say this country's just out for a fight. After 9/11 man I'd have to say thats right"
"Have You Forgotten"
Darryl Worley

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RE: Poly Count Question?, mrmustard11, Apr-17-03, 06:13 PM, (1) RE: Poly Count Question?, CGW409, Apr-17-03, 06:20 PM, (2) RE: Poly Count Question?, Coonskin, Apr-17-03, 07:06 PM, (3) RE: Poly Count Question?, Kip, Apr-17-03, 07:24 PM, (4) RE: Poly Count Question?, riwest, Apr-17-03, 07:49 PM, (5) RE: Poly Count Question?, CGW409, Apr-18-03, 02:05 PM, (6) RE: Poly Count Question?, jlef, Apr-18-03, 02:34 PM, (7) RE: Poly Count Question?, ctillier, Apr-18-03, 03:53 PM, (8) RE: Poly Count Question?, CGW409, Apr-18-03, 04:33 PM, (9) RE: Poly Count Question?, CGW409, Apr-19-03, 10:26 AM, (10) RE: Poly Count Question?, DaveDandy, Apr-21-03, 11:23 AM, (11) RE: Poly Count Question?, Volker_Bollig, Apr-21-03, 11:32 AM, (12) RE: Poly Count Question?, teflonz, Jun-12-03, 10:26 AM, (13) RE: Poly Count Question?, Volker_Bollig, Jun-12-03, 11:45 AM, (14) RE: Poly Count Question?, mickoo, Jun-12-03, 12:21 PM, (15) RE: Poly Count Question?, teflonz, Jun-12-03, 01:18 PM, (16)

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There was a post about this a couple months ago.
Basicly a higher end freight car model should be around 2500 polys.
My D&RG stockcar model has 2540 polys including the couplers. You might try removing the faces that are not visible or use texturing and low poly shapes to create items that would otherwise be high in polygons. Since I don't use TSM I can't be helpful in giving suggestions or examples of how to do that in TSM.-=Andrew=-

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Andrew
Thanks
I know curved shapes add a lot off polys and it maybe the curved roof edges that are giving me grief but I'll see about putting my hack on a low poly diet then.Gary S

"Some say this country's just out for a fight. After 9/11 man I'd have to say thats right"
"Have You Forgotten"
Darryl Worley

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CGW409:For a reference point:In that thread from a while back, I recall that the latest version of 3DTrain's spectacular looking F unit and GP's are somewhere around 8,000-10,000 polys. I would assume your 10,000 poly caboose wouldn't cause a "problem", but the downside is, a pair of F's and your caboose already puts you up to 30,000 polys (plus textures), and there's no rolling stock. Throw in a scad of high-poly rolling stock, moving through high-poly/high-textured scenery objects, and let the slide show begin. That's the challenge all model builders face. One or two high poly models in the frame won't sink the ship... but alas... more and more high-poly stuff keeps surfacing, so the FPS is getting hit harder and harder. There's not an easy solution. Andre Ming

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I use TSM and one of the things I do is I delete unseen polys or sides that serve "no purpose". When I make stock and all the pieces I run them through polygon mode and click on all the polys and delete the ones that do no show or are even needed...but at the same time not look funky in the Sim. After that, there are a few parts that I join or merge together and run it through the poly mode again and delete polys that are embedded into other parts or just not seen whatsoever. This will bring your poly count down. One example is that I made a ore hopper and had 2600 polys. After I went through every part and determined which polys were not needed (unseen) or essential I deleted them. Took awhile, but after I was done I had about 1625 polys. The car looked fine in the sim. I just delete the polys that are not seen. One way is to delete all polys that are embedded into other parts. Why keep that poly? You can't see it...so, just delete it. This will lower the poly count. It is a good practice to delete polys as you go along on each part and after putting them together one piece at a time, do it some more if required. Good Luck!!Kip
The Priest River Railroad "...it's so fictional, it's almost real"
PRRR Wesite Hoodoo Pass v.2.5 "Cascadia Edition" now released at NERR and Train-Sim.

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Gary,
That sounds too high. Unless it were the UP Big Boy you should be around 2-4K. I would guess your using gmax and that your true poly count is not that high. I have tried to select a portion of an object for cloning and wound up cloning the whole object and doubling the polys. Even if you 'undo' your way out, the poly count stays. Go to 'edit' and click select by name, just to make sure there are no double listings. Then, select by hand your whole object and check the poly count of the selected amount. If it still says 7,900, check your grab irons (should have 5-6 sides), and your wheels should have around 12. Have you tried to run it yet in MSTS?riwest

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Riwest
Actually I'm working in TSM.
Haven't tried the conversion yet(probably get that @!%#@@ UID error) but I'll try looking to see if some of the cloned items are giving me a prob.
As for the wheel sets I'm using the premade trucks posted to the FL and a test delete didn't drop the poly count all that much but I'll try going into poly mode and deep six some of the embedded polys.
Again thanks guysGary S

"Some say this country's just out for a fight. After 9/11 man I'd have to say thats right"
"Have You Forgotten"
Darryl Worley

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There is a difference between types of polygons.Before Conversion polygons make a, say, 16 sided shape be one polygon, where after conversion seperates it into triangles and therefore is 14 polygons. As you can imagine, this makes comparing poly numbers difficult. However, I think that about 1200 before conversion polygons is a good limit. But, after conversion is what really matters, so your question is difficult to answer simply.

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LAST EDITED ON Apr-18-03 AT 03:55 PM (EDT)

I wouldn't necessarily believe anything your modeling program tells you. The final answer is embedded in the .s shape file. You can either open it manually if you know where to look, or use decapod's Shape File Manager (see file library) to examine distance levels. It will give you the poly count for each distance level. This is also useful to snoop around in other people's shape files, to find out the poly count and LOD's of your favorite loco or scenery object for examplecheers

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Clem

http://www.tillier.net/speedworks/index.html

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LAST EDITED ON Apr-18-03 AT 04:34 PM (EDT)

Jlef
One of the nice things about TSM is it gives you a before and after poly count, all the numbers I'm giving are after numbers.Clem
I'll go check for SFM
And once more again thanks guysGary S

"Some say this country's just out for a fight. After 9/11 man I'd have to say thats right"
"Have You Forgotten"
Darryl Worley

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OK guys
Removed some hidden polys and now with brake wheel assemblies she down to just under 6K.
Where were most of those polys hidden? apparently the ctrl+C somtimes sticks so I had 7 side step assemblies all sitting together on one side of the hack D'oh!!Gary S

"Some say this country's just out for a fight. After 9/11 man I'd have to say thats right"
"Have You Forgotten"
Darryl Worley

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We wouldn't have this problem if Microsoft could get up to speed and learn a little from flight sim. I recently downloaded a helicopter with 24,000 plus polys. I have a P4 at 1.7Ghz and if flies with no problem. The danger of high polys in trainsim is when you couple multiple locos and cars together--poly count combined can go up quickly. Better to use the high poly count for those special consists which have just a few cars.Dave

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Hi,I don't think that's a M$ problem.In MSTS it is no problem to run 200,000+ polys
in a scene. I've got some loco models with more
than 40,000 polygones running in MSTS without any
difficulties. The real problem is alpha-texturing
and, combined with it, z-buffer sorting. This
causes the videocard a very heavy load of work,
mostly unnessecary.Volker

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Hi.
What videocard do you have???
Could I see that model (40000 polygons)
Thanks

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Hi,first of all, I have to apologize most sincerely. It was obviously my mistake, but I really intended do write rather 20,000 than 40,000. Very sorry for that.
To come to the point, the loco below, the Saxonia (available at www.german-railroad.com), has actually 22,640 faces, my GTL2/2 has 21,587. (www.vmbollig.de/msts) Well, 20,000+ isn't bad at all, isn't it?Though I stated that poly size doesn't really matter in MSTS, and if you really insist, I will try to make a 40,000+ poly loco run in MSTS.
Maybe I fail My videocard is a nvidia GForce2 64Megs.
best regardsVolker

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One way to increase game play is to add LODs into the model, LOD 1 is the highest poly count model and seen closest, LOD 6 is the furthest and usually only has about 100-200 polys.LODs are very common in flight sim but seem to have not caught on in train sim, l work in GMax and LODs are pretty easy to add, l'm not sure how you do them in TSM or 3DC.Generally l set LOD1 upto 80 feet then LOD2 upto say 200 and work out from there, its incredable how much you can shave off LOD2 and still retain the resemblence of a detailed piece of stock.BestMichael

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Hi. Thanks for answer me.
Like I show you, I got problems with 20000 polys.
Any tip for me?
thanks

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