Specifications for game characters?

[Integrated]

Hey all

Just wondering if anyone who works in the industry can provide tri limits for characters in games these days? I'm thinking PC games mostly, like your general First Person Shooters (I know they probably vary..)..as well as what texture memory limitations and sizes they would use?

Also is there a significant differences in characters on consoles and on PCs?

Thanks

[Mrpearlzildjian]

When I first asked this question, I was expecting a simple explanation.. but the truth is, it's actually complex in nature. Although I am not a professional, I have talked to many professionals who give me good information to go by, so I will explain it the best I can from my knowledge.

Of course, like you said, it does vary greatly, and it varies so much because of hardware capabilities. Consoles have a set hardware capability so when making games for consoles, you are usually adhered to a particular limit. They do this with PC's as well, but in some instances, may test on configurations outside your limits. That's why people have to upgrade their PC's every year or so to keep up with the latest trend(I personally built mine just a year ago with late model parts, and I'm just now starting to have trouble running some games).

All in all, you want to optimize your limits as much as possible to keep steady frame rates all around. I was at a seminar in Dallas where some guys from Terminal Reality(they are doing the new Ghostbusters game) were going over their models in the game, and their main characters went up to about 15k Tris. NPC's were at about 5k Tris.

The capabilities of the engine matter as well, so take that into consideration. Look at games like Dead Rising. To me personally, that really just looked like a tech demo for what was then, next gen hardware. They wanted to see how many polys they could fit on screen at once, pushing the hardware limits. This may or may not have been true, but, guessing by the terrible gameplay, it holds true in my opinion.

But some will go to extremes sometimes.. like Spiderman 3 the game.. I heard they used 55k Tris for Spidey(which is an absurd amount for such a simple character in my opinion).

In my own opinion, it is not the amount of polys that will take us to the next generation of games, people can make a great silhouette with little amounts, but rather textures and lighting. But that's a whole different topic...

So to break it down for ya, I would say between 10-15k Tris for main characters, and up to 6k for NPC's(generally).

Not sure about environments, so maybe someone could answer that for ya. Hope I helped.

[cookepuss]

Even 10-15k seems generous in most cases, unless you're talking about a 1-on-1 fighter. A third to half that number seems more likely in many cases. While Dominance War targeted a 10k spec, it really represents more of a high end. PC developers tend to target a mid-range spec to reach the broadest number of gamers. It's entirely different than on a console, where the hardware spec is fixed. PC developers can choose higher specs, but they risk alienating all but the most hardcore of the hardcore.

On a console, there's never a worry that my PS3 will handle fewer or more polys than yours. There's an certain built-in equality there. On the PC front, I could be using a fast quad core and you could be using an Pentium-D with one fifth the power.

At the same time, even if a PC developer chose to target high end hardware, there's no guarantee that they'd pump all of that visual power into characters. Developers are now creating larger, more free flowing worlds with even more detail.

On top of that, just be cause you can use more poly detail doesn't mean that you always will or even need to. In a great many cases, unless silhouette needs to be affected, normal mapping remains a perfectly valid technique.

Like Pearl said, the answer is not so clear cut. You need to know:

- What's your genre?
- What's your overall per-frame or per character budget?
- What's your target platform/spec?
- Do you plan on making this cross-platform?
- Is there user created content in play that can affect overall performance?
ETC.

Looking at these comps or the various real world specs on the net will provide you a good set of rough guidelines. At the same time, don't feel bound to them one way or the other. There are too many factors in play that can increase or reduce those counts greatly.

Instead, focus on doing more with less. Focus on topology. Focus on maximizing the silhouette with a fewer polys. Focus on maybe using other texture passes, if available, to fill in the extra detail.

Strict budgets can be a great thing. They focus you to think critically about how and where you place your next edges or polys. Don't get caught up in the numbers game. If you can make a kickass character in 4k polys instead of 10k then there's no need to waste the detail when it might never be seen. Plus, as a matter of practicality, it makes a rigger/animator's job so much more pleasant. :p (Yeah. I hate rigging super dense meshes. :))

Another thing to consider, especially with FPS game. Is this going to be a more suspenseful eerie sort of experience like Doom 3 or a total balls out flood of enemies like Doom 1? That will greatly impact your bottom line too.

[Buzzy]

I think the important thing is for you to just pick a set of limits and stick to them.
Every game and every situation is different. There is no way to give you a definate answer. RTS characters might have <500 triangles and maybe 256 textures. The cars in GT5 have over 100k triangles (but thats only in the vehicle select menu. They have far fewer in the actual game) So there is a HUGE variety depending on the game, the game's focus, and the particular application. And, as I just mentioned with the GT5 example, a single model very often has multiple resolutions.
With today's hardware, tri counts are becoming somewhat of a non-issue. Most systems and consoles can render so many triangles that you're not likely to bog the system down with raw geometry alone. Its the shaders and lighting that will slow down rendering. Today's major concern is memory. And memory=textures. All of the next-gen projects I've worked on, texture space is almost invariably the deciding factor.
There are also lots of other things beside tricount and texture size to be aware of. Number of bones comes to mind as a good example. Bones can have an effect primarily in 3 different ways - First, animating a bone requires alot of complex math, so more bones means more math, which slows things down. Second, if the model is skinned, each bone effects various verts, which is even more math to compute when animated. Third, if the model is articulated (like a robot where each part of the model is its own bone) then each bone gets drawn seperately. The overhead cost of drawing a model means that more parts is slower to draw than it would be if you combined all of those parts into a single model.
Other things too, like number of lights, how complex the shader is, using alpha, etc. All of these things effect how fast a model renders.

So, basically, there are far too many variables to give you a definate answer. And memory is more important than performance these days. As I said at the beginning, your best bet is to pick a spec, stick to it, and make the most of it, no matter what it is.
Maybe find a model you really like or admire, find out what specs were used, and try to make your character match those.

[Ace-Angel]

Crysis had character of around 14K tri's.
Unreal has around 18K tri's.
Hellgate has around 14K too.

Oblivion had a massive 20K for the higher 'end game gear' models.

The list can go on, but it's all about engines, targets and specs.

[Mrpearlzildjian]

@Cookepuss

I agree completely if you don't need the polys to make the silhouette pop then by all means, don't add em in there.

I remember the guys from Terminal Reality talking about how their main characters(the Ghostbusters themselves) went up to 20k.

I generally keep it between 7-8k Tris, but if I feel I need the extra polys to make it shine, I won't hesitate to go up to 10k. You compensate other places too. There are just way too many factors to give a definitive answer, but I was just trying to give him a general suggestion based on my interaction with the Ghostbuster guys.