Building Little Parts vs. Big Parts

[Alex Ros]

Is there any technical problem with modeling whole, also for example, whole room, instead of modeling repeatable, for example, walls sets? And I am asking strictly about technical problems, nothing else. I do understand that repeatable sets of architectural parts are more convenient for quick work.

I have heard somewhere, do not remember where exactly, that it's better not to exceed the number of 600 triangles per model. Probably, that might be exactly the problem I am asking about. At the same time that information might be just simply incorrect.

Anyway, the question is quite an important one, because for me personally it's a lot easier to model buildings by rooms with all exclusive details (architectural of course, not items or decals).

Thanks in advance!

[Your Computer]

There is no difference modeling an entire room and breaking up the room into piece only to put it back together in the level editor, that is, performance wise, as it should amount to the same amount of triangles. The grunt itself greatly exceeds 600 triangles, and you can have several of them in one map, with the player facing them all, without any noticeable performance loss.

[JonnyAnomaly]

I think the poly count exceeding 600 triangles being bad is incorrect, or at least its a bit extreme as 600 triangles is pretty low and there are plenty of models in Amnesia that exceed this number. In general, I don't think poly count even seems to matter that much anymore as opposed to amount of different objects with different textures. As long as you aren't going crazy with high tri count on every object, it won't really make any difference. I'm working on a map at the moment which includes a large house from outside, with many high poly objects. There's probably around 100,000 triangles on screen at once, and its only when adding particle effects and shadow casting spotlights around the place that the FPS starts to lower.

[Acies]

Oh, there is a misinterpretation around the 600 triangles thing. That is regarding a polycount article - and how the GPU reads models. What it said is basically that somewhere around 600 triangles (depending on GPU) it doesn't matter if you optimze more. So <600 triangle models are basically requiring the same amount of performance. http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50588

Performance-wise I think it's better to have one large texture, instead of several smaller ones. So in the instance of creating a room, it's better performance-wise to have all the room models in a 2048 texture rather than smaller textures. This has to do with something called 'drawcalls'.

However if the export of the room is made by bundling a lot of textures to one mesh I would rather recommend having them split up, for performance reasons.

Ultimately it's a matter of how you like to work. If you enjoy making the rooms as 'finished' models - do that. I find it nicer to split them into modular pieces, for the sake of 're-usage' later.