Hello, It would be good to get some opinions on what are realistic polygon counts for realtime game characters(and things to consider).PC's are getting faster etc nowadays,and it seems that much higher poly characters are being used in games. Obviously a game takes a long time to make,in which time graphics cards etc improve,new texturing techniques come out,(e.g more realistic skinning)adding more detail to low meshes. So its hard to see a way,(other than creating high poly versions as well)that if a lot of game characters was needed to be made,for a game that coding and the rest will take over a year(or longer)That they will look outdated,or could be much higher poly. Anyway,any opinions(or if possible,some screenshots)of low/higher models that would be thought of as normal,to use for a modern up to date realtime-3d game would be good. or just some advice/opinions)-: Thanks. Steve. [edited by - SteveB on February 24, 2003 6:58:37 PM]

Doom 3''s characters are low poly. They range from 2500-10000 polys. It all depends what else the engine is doing and how much you want on screen.

so in general,the more you got going on,(or more characters etc on screen at any 1 time)its best to keep as them low as possible.
Thanks for answering.
Steve.

10,000 low poly ???

That sounds very very high to me.

10,000 * 60 fps = 600,000 poly per sec for one model

Keep in mind though the original Poster asked about polycounts on future hardware. So 10k per model may not be too high at all.

Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal 2 (which both utilize the most advanced graphical game engines out there at the moment) have an advised character model polycount of 3 to 5,000 polygons.