PDA

View Full Version : Edit Poly - Edit Mesh Qs

ErickG
02-06-2002, 06:46 AM
I am modeling a few low poly people to make-up a crowd scene and I am striping them down to very few number of polys.

My question is if it makes a difference using edit poly vs edit mesh for reduction purposes.

My understanding is that edit poly is really just an implementation for the viewer but max still reguards the object as being tri based and will render them as tris anyway. So for reduction purposes I am actually fooling myself using edit poly?

The poly count does decrease but is this a crule trick and will not make any difference in memory saving? I have to make 10,000 people in this crowd so every poly counts.

Also is there an edit poly modifier that anybody has written? I have having to convert between edit mesh and edit poly. Somtimes disasters occur when converting between??

-Erick
charleyc
02-06-2002, 09:10 AM
I am not sure about all your questions, but here is some info that may help. One advantage to editable poly's is that you can delete edges without it deleting the polygons. This helps me when reducing mesh (reneber to weld stay verts if you get them). If the tri-quad issue is not resolved, you could always create tri_poly's:) But, I like to use poly's more than straight editable mesh, and I don't make models for games.
xynaria
02-06-2002, 10:05 AM
Editable Poly shows its face count as half of what it really is until you use mesh smooth.. simple test.. do a box, clone it, one a mesh, one a poly, and check face counts. Add 1 iteration of Mesh Smooth.. check again. I presume at renderthe lower count is disregarded. :)
ErickG
02-06-2002, 10:07 AM
Thanks for your reply. What I really need to know is the interal MAX questions. I am counting on using it to delete segs (that is how I am reducing the poly count) but I need to know if this matters at render time or if it will consume the same resources as if I did not bother.

I don't plan on mesh smoothing the models as they are essentially going to me small in frame. I took a box and looked at it with the polycount tool and the edit poly has a lower count than the edit mesh. I just don't know if this is a hoax.

Remember, I am doing a crowd of 10,000. Each face saved is 10,000 less to render and it will make a big difference in memory requirments.

-Erick
Harvey
02-06-2002, 11:56 AM
Poly objects are actually handeled completly differently than Editable meshes....the information is based on edges rather than vertices. At least that is my understanding.

However the Max renderer is based on tri and thus will convert anything (poly object, nurbs, patches) to meshes during render time.

So the answer to your question is no....polys won't render faster...however they may make your workflow faster. Simply convert them to an editable mesh when you are finished to find out the polycount the renderer will see (the assumstion that polys will have twice as many faces when converted is just a rough estimate).
CGTalk Moderation
01-13-2006, 12:39 AM
This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.