Are wires no longer important in portfolio?

#1

Hi dear colleagues,
I’ve noticed that very few artists post wires alongside with their renders nowadays.
Is it no longer a problem to create, or not that important as before?
What are your thoughts?

#2

I would imagine that it would still be important
for some game asset portfolios to show your skill at
creating clean yet optimized game engine content.

#3

I also think so. Maybe creating topology became much easier due to retopology and auto-retopology.

#4

I think wire images were originally important to show polygon density. Artists wanted to show how few polygons they had used to make the model. As computer power increased models became more complex and polygon counts went up it became more important to show use of clean modeling techniques. Artists wanted to show their models were watertight (manifold) or used n-gons minimally if at all. As this became common practice it became more important to show topology and edgeflow. I imagine that it is also still important to show that character models have a topology suited to t-strips and realtime rendering.
I agree that retopology and auto-retopology have probably contibuted to generally cleaner models, as did improved boolean operators and winged-edge modeling before that. But there has also been an evolution in what kinds of models people were making. In the 1990s and 2000s, polygon budgets were very low. Polygon counts were more important than topology because it was more important for most games to have many simple objects on screen than to have just a few highly detailed objects on screen. Topology has always been important to making animated characters, but was generally more about having enough polygons at joints for acceptably smooth bending, than keeping models smooth while bending or creating natural facial deformation as it is prioritized now.

#5

Great response, Moogalonie, thank you!
If to compare models created for movies, like for The Matrix etc, I think they had fewer polygons than AAA games nowadays.
So to deduce your post, wires were shown for
-showing polygon counts, optimal/low density to match the industry requirements, as it was more important than topology (as you had to deal with the amount of polys you’re provided, and not more)
-topology and edgeflow for animation

After 2010, the requirements shifted to , due to fast retopology and autoretopology, to
-clean modeling techniques

One common thing for animation models, which is as important as before, is having enough loops in highly deformable areas… But facial animation is more important nowadays, as more polys are acceptible, so you can make more with it (and also better tools for facial mocap).

#6

IMO, the novelty of polycounts wore off.

Travel back to the 2000s, and it was always a surprise when a computer generated model got confused for real life. Movies like Jurassic Park or Final Fantasy Spirits Within had to show wireframes to prove they were really rendered by computers as opposed to being played by actors or used animatronics.

But fast forward today, and realistic CGI is everywhere, to the point people even confuse computer effects for that of real practical ones.

I would also argue wireframes in general aren’t all that pleasing to look at. Since it’s not uncommon for some props to have millions of polygons, do you really want to look at all that moire pattern when it’s just a sphere?

dERsRA9.png705x667

#7

JordanNVFX, I would still be interested in character’s wires. Though they muight be too dense as well. Someitimes it’s interesting if the model was accomplished with normal maps, displacement or sub-d modeling.
It seems like being technically knowligeable is a prerequisite now.
Actually it’s not bad, as it’s a move towards art from the technical side of things.

#8

Check out this breakdown of a 2016 movie.

Some scenes are dense, other times it’s really just medium polygon counts.

I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if most movies are like that, save for the exception of Godzilla like monsters, who come straight out of Mudbox.

#9

Looking at the celebrated UE5 demo from last spring, running on the new PS5 with trillions of triangles in realtime, would seem to indicate
that polycounts have become far less important.

#10

Well, that was a technical demo, showing computational power of PS5, not a run-of-the-mill model density for videogames. It’s not that we can throw any number of polys without thinking back about ecomonizing, like exporting sculpts from Zbrush. I agree that in last 10 years polys budgets increased like 5 times.